Japanese middleweight veteran Yushin 'Thunder' Okami was released from the UFC today. Okami is coming off a first round knockout loss to Ronaldo 'Jacare' Souza earlier this month. Prior to that Okami had won three straight fights with wins over ranked middleweights Alan Belcher and Hector Lombard. Okami's 13-5 UFC record is one of the best in the division but his smothering style might've played a role in his release. Okami was on a $42,000 show/$42,000 win contract. The release is reminicent of Jon Fitch's early this year. Fitch was on a $66,000 show/$66,000 win contract and was deemed by UFC President Dana White "too expensive" for what he brought to the table.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-c...03036--mma.html;_ylt=A2KJjb1bHkZSLggAdJNNbK5_ You could say this about a lot of fighters.
Ariel Helwani's take on this was interesting. He basically says that Okami wasn't good enough to be champion and was stifling the division by knocking off potential contenders like Lombard and Belcher. IMHO if you can't beat Okami you aren't a contender. That's the point of having guys like that (gatekeepers), to separate the wheat from the chaff. The cut makes no sense. If Dana had come out and said "he doesn't speak English, has no fans, and has a boring style" at least people could grudgingly accept his honesty if not his reasoning.
