Should UFC fighters be cut if they turn down fights.

Should UFC fighters be cut if they turn down fights.

At the post fight press conference for UFC Liverpool this past weekend, Dana White had this to say in regards to being asked about why he cut  Yair Rodriguez.

“When I call you and offer you a fight, you should probably take it. I make 42 fights a year. And if you don’t want to fight, and if you want to be picky and choosy, and you don’t want to do this and you don’t want to do that, then you probably need to go somewhere else. And I’ll help you get there.”

While you perhaps shouldn’t take the comments as gospel, but the words were certainly said to make fighters think very carefully before turning down fights.

Did White over-step the mark, is this really the way to treat your talent, in effect putting them on notice to accept virtually any fight or risk being cut from the roster.

Of course what you don’t want is fighters picking and choosing who they want to fight, to protect their ranking, or only wanting to fight a certain style of opponent for example, but there are sometimes legitimate reasons why a fighter will turn fights down.

Is it right that say a rising prospect is offered a fight which the fighter and his team view as too much too soon, should that fighter be cut in those circumstance, the fighter should have some control over his career in my opinion.

Should a fighter after a long layoff due to injury be cut, if that fighter wants what they would say in boxing ‘a tune up fight’ would that fighter really be making unreasonable demands to ask for a slightly easier fight on his first fight back.

Obviously money might be an issue also, should a fringe contender be cut if he wanted more money to fight a leading contender, again is that unreasonable.

Fighters should be able to reasonably negotiate opponents and indeed their purse without a threat of being cut. Fighters quite rightly in my opinion want more control and obviously more pay, but that puts them in direct dispute with the UFC, will the Rodriguez situation repeat itself again, judging from White’s comments it certainly looks that way.