London-based MMA and boxing reporter Gareth Davies (#GarethBOXUFC) is reporting that the UFC plans to trim it's lightweight division from 60 fighters to just 28 in the coming months. The most recent casualty is Paul Kelly. Unf for Paul, there are 60 lightweights on UFC roster cos UFC/WEC merger. They are cutting to 28. Did you know that... ? Lightweight was always going to be the worst div in UFC to suffer with WEC/UFC merger...SO many fighters... I suspect we'll see a swath of guys dropping to featherweight to preemptively avoid the cutting block. Griffin & Florian are just the tip of the iceberg.
my question is why? it's one of the more exciting divisions in the UFC and with the fight nights on Spike and the continued events on Vs. they'll need all the bodies IMO. of course I expect some of this is due to the UFC's desire to showcase the 135 and 145 divisions so those who didn't follow the WEC can get acclimated to the exciting fighters in those division.
I guess they want the division to be as competitive as possible and to keep the title picture clear. However I think the main reason is that there are only so many fights available. They put on a show about every three weeks so 18 shows x 12 fights = 216 fights per year. If you have guys fighting three times that really limits the spots.
