November Rain: Analyzing The UFC Roster Cuts

As every week passes, the sport of mixed martial arts gets more and more like professional sports—especially when it comes to the transactions side of things.

Lately, the waiver wire for fighters has been lighting up the MMA blogs as even the baddest of the bad—the UFC—has been paring the fat from their roster.

Since things happened fast and furious, here's a quick recap of the releases, just in time for the holiday season. Fellow MMA journalist Sam Caplan speculated the roster—currently around 180—could be cut down to 140 over the next few months. If that's the case, we're a lot closer to the top than we are to the bottom.

Josh Hendricks

The 15-5 heavyweight just made his UFC debut at November's Couture v. Lesnar event, getting dropped by Gabriel Gonzaga via first-round knockout. News broke of his release on November 20th which according to his agent was by mutual decision as he felt Hendricks (seen left) needed more experience before making the jump to the big-time again. Perhaps Strikeforce would be a good landing spot for the big man.

Marcus Aurelio

The 16-10 lightweight debuted in the UFC with a loss to Clay Guida and ended his time there just over a year later with a loss to Hermes Franca, getting cut on November 19th. The 35-year-old was 2-3 in his octagon career and never fought for a UFC title.

Paulo Filho

This didn't really come as a surprise following his bizarre loss to Chael Sonnen in November, where Filho missed weight and failed to defend his WEC Middleweight title in the process. Filho was a high-riser and could continue to be, but to cut a guy that was 16-1 means the behind-the-scenes issues he was fighting were enough for Zuffa to take a pass. Filho was cut on November 19th and is rumored to be going to Bellator Fighting Championships, a group which will air on ESPN Deportes in 2009.

Fabricio Werdum

The release of heavyweight Werdum came as a surprise, even with his 1st-round knockout loss to Junior Dos Santos in October. Werdum had amassed a 11-4-1 record, defeating Gabriel Gonzaga and Brandon Vera and losing to Santos and Andrei Arlovski in the UFC. There was almost no reason to let him go with the division on the fast track to making money.

According to Werdum, the UFC "demanded to renegotiate my existing contract by cutting my pay in half". If true, I could see where that would be an issue. Affliction seems to be the logical choice, given their deep heavyweight division, but recently said that the numbers didn't make sense for them to acquire him.

Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou

This is one light heavyweight whom I wanted to succeed. He had a great look, cool name and a serious buzz coming from his success in PRIDE; however, the 5-3 Sokoudjou couldn't get it together within the Octagon.

Debuting last December, RTS dropped a submission win to Lyoto Machida, defeated Nakamura via TKO (leg injury) in May and then got beat by Luiz Cane by TKO (strikes) in October. He's only 24 though and tops the list of guys that could be back. It makes sense for him to return to Japan where he became a major player in the fight game.

Jorge Gurgel

The former TUF competitor was cut just weeks after earning Fight of the Night honors for his November loss against Aaron Riley at UFC 91. Gurgel was 3-4 as a UFC lightweight (12-5 overall) and had been with the organization since June 2006, dropping three of his last four fights. It didn't take long for him to find work as he inked a deal with Strikeforce soon after being released, so expect to see him on HDNet very soon.

As the UFC and WEC prepare for a busy month of December, the likelihood of more fighters joining the ranks of the unemployed seems certain.

Happy holidays.

Josh Nason—josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com]—has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. If you are using any content or recapping from this site, please include a link to www.ropesringandcage.com. Thank you for your support!