One of the most exciting young fighters in mixed martial arts is apparently now a free agent.
Rising featherweight star Yair Rodriguez has been released by the UFC, the promotion’s president Dana White told Lance Pugmire of the LA Times.
The 25-year-old Mexican is currently ranked as the No. 11 contender in the 145-pound division but hasn’t fought since suffering a one-sided TKO loss to Frankie Edgar almost exactly one year ago.
White said Rodriguez turned down a fight with No. 7-ranked Ricardo Lamas and a UFC 227 matchup with No. 13-ranked Zabit Magomedsharipov.
“The guy’s off a year, rejects a fight with Lamas and then doesn’t want to fight a guy below him in the rankings?” White told Pugmire. “He can go somewhere else. We have no use for him.”
Turning down fights is far from unusual in the UFC, so White’s decision to release Rodriguez is a peculiar one—especially considering his high upside both in terms of skill and star power.
Rodriguez won the featherweight tournament on The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America in 2014 before railing off five straight victories, including highlight-reel knockouts of Andre Fili and B.J. Penn.
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