The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was in Brooklyn, NY for the first time in promotional history last Saturday (February 11, 2017) with UFC 208: Holm vs. De Randamie. It was a lackluster event that saw the promotion’s inaugural women’s featherweight champion get crowned and nine out of 10 bouts go the distance. The scraps are now in our rear view, so let’s take a look at which of the evening’s competitors we may no longer see going to work inside the Octagon… ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK Phillipe Nover Once coined “The Next Anderson Silva” by Dana White during the eight season of The Ultimate Fighter reality television series, Nover made it to the TUF 8 tournament finals, where he was defeated by Efrain Escudero by unanimous decision in a massive upset. His next time out, he suffered a first-round knockout loss against Kyle Bradley, and that followed with a unanimous decision loss to Rob Emerson. After going winless in the UFC in three bouts, Nover was released from the promotion. He went 5-2 outside the UFC, including 2-1 in Bellator, which his two defeats coming against current UFC lightweights Marcin Held and Tony Martin. A three-fight winning streak got him a fight back in the UFC, where he took on Yul Chul Nam and defeated him via controversial split decision, finally picking up his first career UFC victory. In his next Octagon outing, “The Philipino Assassin” took on Zubaira Tukhugov and lost that bout via split decision on the judges’ scorecards. A unanimous decision loss to former UFC bantamweight champion Renan Barao followed that bout, and most recently he took on former WSOF featherweight champion Rick Glenn this past weekend at UFC 208 and lost that bout via controversial split decision following three rounds of action. The majority felt that Nover deserved the nod, but two out of three judges’ at Octagon-side did not see it that way. Due to the poor decision, I would like to see the UFC give Nover another shot, but they are not exactly in the business of being fair to their fighters, so it is more than likely we have seen the last of him inside the Octagon. For now, that is. I would not be surprised to see him return for a third stint with the promotion should he get the axe.
