Dana White says the UFC will cut around 60 fighters from their roster
Dana White is cleaning house.
Earlier this week, the MMA world was thrown off guard when Yoel Romero, who just challenged for the middleweight title in March, was released from the UFC.
The 43-year-old Cuban has been highly ranked middleweight from along time with the UFC. March marked the fourth time he competed for a UFC title. In two of those title appearances, Romero was ineligible to win the championship due to missing weight.
While the news of Romero’s departure was shocking, it turns out that this is just the begging of several cuts coming according to the UFC president.
“It’s not just Yoel,” White said at his UFC Vegas 16 post-fight press conference. “We’re going to go through some serious cuts here at the end of the year. We’re probably going to have 60 cuts before the first of the year. Yoel has lost four of his last five. He’s 44 years old. Our roster is very inflated right now. We’re going to have some big cuts coming before the end of the year. You’re going to see a lot of names going here in the next several weeks. … These are the tough decisions you have to make.”
Romero was one of five fighters to recently be cut from the UFC roster. MMA Junkie reported that Justin Ledet, Bevon Lewis, Cole Smith and Collin Huckbody were also released by the promotion.
Ledet debuted in the UFC 2016, but hasn’t won a fight since 2017 and is currently riding a four-fight losing streak. Lewis and Smith only won a fight a piece in their short lived UFC careers. Huckbody never ever got to make the walk to the octagon as he was just signed to a UFC contract this summer on Dana White’s Contender Series.
There is no word as to when the rest of the cuts will take place.
