Earlier this year, UFC president Dana White remarked during a media scrum at UFC 157 that his organization’s roster was 100 fighters too heavy, and that the promotion would begin to trim the excess fat off the roster, so to speak.
That same day, the UFC released a number of veteran fighters, including Jon Fitch, Vladimir Matyushenko, and Terry Etim, but according to White, “The blood has not all been spilled yet.”
And he wasn’t lying, as over the course of the last six-plus months, a number of fighters were given their pink slips.
After White said the UFC needed to cut 100 guys, I took up the dubious honor of writing a list of 100 fighters the UFC could cut from the roster, and it became one of my most popular pieces of the year during the height of the UFC roster purge.
It’s been just over six months since White made his comments, so let’s see who from the original list of 100 fighters made the cut, and which fighters were actually cut.
Heavyweight
1. Phil De Fries (2-3) — CUT
2. Shane Del Rosario (0-2) — SURVIVED
3. Dave Herman (1-4) — CUT
4. Christian Morecraft (1-3) — RETIRED
5. Ben Rothwell (3-3) — SURVIVED
6. Brendan Schaub (5-3) — SURVIVED
Light Heavyweight
7. Joey Beltran (4-5) — SURVIVED
8. Roger Hollett (0-2) — CUT
9. Fabio Maldonado (2-3) — SURVIVED
10. Eduardo Oliveira (0-2) — CUT
11. Anthony Perosh (4-4) — SURVIVED
12. Igor Pokrajac (4-5, 1 No Contest) — SURVIVED
13. Krzysztof Sozsynski (6-3) — SURVIVED (MAY RETIRE)
Middleweight
14. Magnus Cedenblad (1-1) — SURVIVED
15. Andrew Craig (3-1) — SURVIVED
16. Tim Credeur (3-2) — RETIRED
17. Jared Hamman (2-5) — SURVIVED
18. Tom Lawlor (5-4) — SURVIVED
19. Chris Leben (12-9) — SURVIVED
20. Jason MacDonald (6-8) — RETIRED
21. Caio Magalhaes (1-1) — SURVIVED
22. Rousimar Palhares (7-4) — SURVIVED
23. Yoel Romero (1-0) — SURVIVED
24. Alessio Sakara (6-7, 1 No Contest) — SURVIVED
25. Jake Shields (3-2, 1 No Contest) — SURVIVED
26. Sean Spencer (1-1) — SURVIVED
27. Clifford Starks (1-2) — CUT
28. Karlos Vemola (2-4) — CUT
Welterweight
29. Papy Abedi (1-3) — SURVIVED
30. Yoshihiro Akiyama (1-4) — SURVIVED
31. Lance Benoist (1-2) — SURVIVED
32. Nah-Shon Burrell (1-1) — CUT
33. Nick Catone (3-4) — SURVIVED
34. Brock Jardine (0-2) — CUT
35. Robbie Lawler (6-3) — SURVIVED
36. Duane Ludwig (4-5) — SURVIVED (MAY RETIRE)
37. Neil Magny (1-1) — SURVIVED
58. John Maguire (2-3) — CUT
39. Jon Manley (0-1) — CUT
40. Court McGee (5-2) — SURVIVED
41. Josh Neer (6-9) — CUT
42. Kenny Robertson (1-2) — SURVIVED
43. Amir Sadollah (6-4) — SURVIVED
44. Brad Scott (0-1) — SURVIVED
45. Mike Swick (10-4) — SURVIVED
46. Paulo Thiago (4-5) — SURVIVED
47. Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson (2-1) — SURVIVED
48. Yuri Villefort (0-2) — SURVIVED
49. Keith Wisniewski (0-4) — SURVIVED
50. Besam Yousef (0-2) — CUT
Lightweight
51. Mark Bocek (7-5) — SURVIVED
52. Roger Bowling (0-1, 1 No Contest) — SURVIVED
53. Fabricio Camoes (1-2-1) — SURVIVED
54. John Cholish (1-2) — RETIRED
55. Mitch Clarke (1-2) — SURVIVED
56. Mac Danzig (5-7) — SURVIVED
57. Colin Fletcher (0-2) — CUT
58. Tony Ferguson (3-1) — SURVIVED
59. Melvin Guillard (21-8) — SURVIVED
60. Al Iaquinta (1-1) — SURVIVED
61. Michael Johnson (5-4) — SURVIVED
62. Lucas Martins (2-1) — SURVIVED
63. Anthony Njokuani (3-3) — SURVIVED
64. KJ Noons (0-1) — SURVIVED
65. Vinc Pichel (0-1) — SURVIVED
66. Joe Proctor (1-1) — SURVIVED
67. Mike Ricci (1-1) — SURVIVED
68. Aaron Riley (3-6) — RETIRED
69. Justin Salas (2-1) — SURVIVED
70. George Sotiropoulos (7-3) — SURVIVED
71. Thiago Tavares (7-5-1) — SURVIVED
72. Tiequan Zhang (2-4) — SURVIVED
Featherweight
73. Maximo Blanco (1-1) — SURVIVED
74. Rodrigo Damm (2-1) — SURVIVED
75. Leonard Garcia (2-7) — CUT
76. Hatsu Hioki (2-3) — SURVIVED
77. Mizuto Hirota (0-2) — SURVIVED
78. Justin Lawrence (1-2) — CUT
79. Cody McKenzie (3-3) — SURVIVED
80. Yaotzin Meza (1-1) — SURVIVED
81. Cole Miller (7-6) — SURVIVED
82. Bart Palaszewski (1-3) — CUT
83. Nam Phan (2-4) — SURVIVED
84. Daniel Pineda (3-3) — SURVIVED
85. Godofredo Pepey (1-2) — SURVIVED
86. Sam Sicilia (1-2) — SURVIVED
87. Jeremy Stephens (8-8) — SURVIVED
88. Jason Young (1-3) — CUT
Bantamweight
89. John Albert (1-4) — CUT
90. Chico Camus (2-1) — SURVIVED
91. Reuben Duran (1-3) — CUT
92. Urijah Faber (4-2) — SURVIVED
93. Azamat Gashimov (0-2) — CUT
94. Dustin Pague (1-4) — SURVIVED
95. George Roop (4-5) — SURVIVED
96. Issei Tamura (1-2) — CUT
97. Marcos Vinicius (1-2) — SURVIVED
98. Yorifumi “KID” Yamamoto (0-3) — SURVIVED
Flyweight
99. Jussier Formiga (1-2) — SURVIVED
100. Ian McCall (1-2-1) — SURVIVED
TOTAL NUMBER OF FIGHTERS ON ORIGINAL LIST: 100
TOTAL NUMBER OF FIGHTERS WHO WERE CUT: 21
TOTAL NUMBER OF FIGHTERS WHO RETIRED: 5
TOTAL NUMBER OF FIGHTERS WHO SURVIVED: 74
As the numbers indicate, the UFC never actually got close to cutting the 100 fighters they said they would, and ironically have signed more than 21 new fighters in the six-plus months since White’s original comments.
Perhaps it was a ploy by White to get his fighters to go all out every night — and to be honest it may have worked, as the quality of fights has arguably improved in the last six months, for the most part. But regardless, the UFC never ended up actually cutting even close to the number of fighters they originally sought to get rid of.
There are still a few more months left in 2013, so perhaps some more of the fighters on the list will be cut. However, it’s clear that since the majority of the fighters on the original list survived, they must have really taken White’s comments to heart, and obviously for good reason.
