Last week, we heard some interesting rumors surfacing that the UFC was about to unload a substantial amount of talent in the coming months to slender down the roster of fighters. At first glance, I was a bit disappointed as I figured the UFC may be trying to limit how many fights these guys can take in a year, thus giving us less events with top talent. It doesn’t make sense why the promotion would do that however, so I’m hoping they may be opening up some doorways for some other talent out there to move in. Obviously, the UFC wants to cut the fat and put on some lean muscle by bringing in small numbers of elite talent and cutting large amounts of disappointments or TUF alumni. Today, a few more guys were lumped into that group.

Din Thomas, Kuniyoshi Hironaka, and Tommy Speer were all cut from the UFC according to the Wrestling Observer newsletter. The numbers are now totaling around 9-10 fighters currently off the UFC payroll for the time being with more cuts possibly coming after their next scheduled event on May 24th.

Is this a major disappointment for fans? Was Thomas, Hironaka, and Speer good candidates to be cut from the UFC? I believe they were for more than just losing efforts. Thomas has definitely dropped off in skill, Hironaka couldn’t cut it against bigger and rangier opponents, and Speer was just outmatched in his bout with Anthony Johnson. There are other factors I believe that are pushing these fighters out besides losing two straight fights.

For instance, are any of those fighters extraordinarily exciting to watch? No, they aren’t, and I think the UFC is definitely more inclined to keep the James Irvin’s of the promotion around even after a loss due to their explosiveness and excitement factor.

Of course, the UFC can’t control the fights once they are made and both combatants are in the cage. We could end up cutting a lot of non-exciting fighters and still end up with a lackluster event full of horribly bad lay-n-pray decisions. In the end however, the UFC is creating better odds for themselves by cutting those types of fighters. It’s looking good so far, UFC, keep it up.