Dana White Fires A Ton Of Fighters, Including Jon Fitch

Photo by Adrian Valenzuela for JonFitch.net

by Dr. Octagon, J.D.

UFC boss Dana White sent a clear message this week by cutting Jon Fitch, Jacob Volkman and 14 other fighters: win or lose, just don’t be boring.

There’s a common narrative in the MMA press that the UFC cares more about entertainment and Pay Per View buys than staging the most competitive fights possible. The UFC has increasingly been making title fights featuring popular fighters, rather than the best contender in a given weight class. Examples include Jon Jones fighting Chael Sonnen and GSP fighting Nick Diaz. 

The Jones-Sonnen matchup mainly seems calculated to renew interest in The Ultimate Fighter, which had been a spectacular success. And because Jones has more or less cleaned out the light heavyweight division, there isn’t anyone with a really great claim to a title shot other than Dan Henderson, who was hurt at the time of the show’s taping and is fighting the dangerous Lyoto Machida tonight.

The GSP fight is insane. I love Nick Diaz, but he’s coming off a loss, a second (or third, I forget at this point) positive drug test, and the last time he had a title shot against GSP, he refused to go to any press conferences. (Unsurprisingly, Dana has made similar allegations this time around, which have been disputed by Diaz’s reps.)

Johny Hendricks is coming off three straight wins against Jon Fitch, Josh Koschek, and Martin Kampmann. Yet the title shot goes to Diaz, a guy with a decision loss and a positive drug test. Dana claims GSP wanted the fight against Diaz. No shit he wanted the fight. Hendricks is terrifying. I bet Jon Jones doesn’t mind fighting padding his records with wins against TRT middleweights either.

Back to the fighters that just got cut:[[MORE]]

The name that should jump out at you is Jon Fitch, one of the top welterweights of all time, who got paid $66,000 in his last fight and was ranked 9th in the world by the UFC’s own rankings. Fitch was coming off a single loss, prior to that, he had a Fight of the Night win against Erick Silva. Dana says he’s too expensive, which is funny given that the UFC would likely be profitable even if it gave its Pay Per Views away for free. The amount the UFC pays its fighters makes me sick.

Dana already had a vendetta against Jon Fitch due to a videogame licensing controversy a while back. Jon Fitch also is known for putting on boring fights that he wins by wrestlefucking his competition. His career is on the decline, but there aren’t many welterweights out there that he wouldn’t be a favorite against.

Jacob Volkmann, another wrestler that is pretty good but tends to be in boring fights, was also cut after one loss in a row. Meanwhile, fighters like Leonard Garcia, who is on a four-fight losing streak, are kept in the organization.

Dana is sending a message to fighters that he does not give a fuck about wins and only wants exciting fighters, even if that means a bum like Garcia that will come forward throwing haymakers for three rounds while getting beaten to a bloody pulp. This hurts the legitimacy of the sport, because fighters no longer have to worry only about whether they win or lose, but must now also ensure their fighting style makes for an exciting show.

I love exciting fights as much as the next guy, but I also want to see one fighting league with all the best fighters in it. Keeping fighters like Dan Hardy and Leonard Garcia on the payroll while cutting guys like Fitch and Volkmann moves MMA further away from being taken seriously as a sport.  This is a shitty move and I hope we see these guys facing top-flight competition again soon.