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Dana White Says 60 More UFC Fighters To Be Cut After Yoel Romero's Release

Dana White Says 60 More UFC Fighters To Be Cut After Yoel Romero's Release

Big names face the axe after star middleweight is shockingly let go.

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Dana White has said that a mass cut of around 60 UFC fighters is coming in the next month after news broke that Yoel Romero has been surprisingly released.

Brazil's 'Soldier of God' may be 43 years old, but in his very last fight he challenged Israel Adesanya for the middleweight championship in the main event of UFC 248. Romero went the distance, losing a unanimous decision.

So the MMA reacted in shock to the news that his seven-year stint with UFC is abruptly over after multiple title challenges and Fight of the Night awards.

However White has explained that Romero's axing is far from an isolated case and the that the UFC need to make serious moves to chop down an "inflated" roster.

"It's not just Yoel," White told MMA Junkie, at the post-fight press conference following UFC on ESPN 19.

"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."

White is right about Romero's record (although he actually turns 44 in April). But his level of opposition has been incredibly high in that time including Adesanya, Robert Whittaker, Paulo Costa and Luke Rockhold.

He's currently No 5 in the UFC's own middleweight rankings - so evidence that nobody is safe is entirely safe if the powers that be at UFC decide you're past your prime and on a losing streak.

"I don't do the old guy stuff," said White this weekend, making it clear he's prioritising the next generation of MMA fighters.

News on the names of the 60 potential cuts as we get it. But, given White's warning, we're not expecting 56 years young Ken Shamrock to re-sign with the UFC any time soon.

Featured image credit: PA Images

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Topics: UFC News, MMA News, Yoel Romero, Fight News, UFC, MMA, Dana White

Alex Reid is a writer at SPORTbible who’s previously strung words together for FourFourTwo, Boxing News, The Guardian and, yes, Cruise International (it’s about big ships, not Tom). Interests range from football and boxing to real sports like WWE and darts. He is not a cage fighter.

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