UFC Releases 16 fighters including Jon Fitch

The UFC has released 16 fighters on Tuesday, which included former UFC welterweight title contender Jon Fitch, who was 14-3-1 in the UFC but had lost two of his last three.ufc_logo

As first reported on MMAFighting.com, and confirmed by the UFC President Dana White, the UFC has released the following fighters from the organization:

Jon Fitch (24-5)
Wagner Prado (8-2)
Mike Russow (15-3)
Jacob Volkmann (15-4)
Vladimir Matyushenko (26-7)
Che Mills (15-6)
Jay Hieron (23-7)
Terry Etim (15-5)
Paul Sass (13-2)
Jorge Santiago (25-11)
Mike Stumpf (11-4)
Simeon Thoresen (17-4)
C.J. Keith (8-2)
Motonobu Tezuka (19-6)
Josh Grispi (14-5)
Ulysses Gomez (9-4)

Some of the names on the list are not as surprising as others, but it is interesting as Jon Fitch is a top-ten welterweight and Dana White was just speaking highly of Jorge Santiago.

At the same time, with the influx of Strikeforce talent now signed with the UFC and each fighter on this list coming off at least one-loss it was becoming difficult to keep so many fighters on the roster.