The UFC today released welterweight fighter Jake Shields from his contract with the world’s No. 1 MMA promotion, and the former Strikeforce middleweight champ is now a free agent. The report is according to Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, who confirmed the disappointing news with Shields’ manager Lex McMahon. Shields’ release is somewhat surprising, but it’s not completely shocking. Although he is a perennial top 10 welterweight who had a winning 4-3, 1 NC record in the Octagon, his fights were often very dull and his fighting style was considered boring by many. Considering he was pulling in nearly six figures just to show, the UFC obviously felt they weren’t getting a good enough return on their investment and thus they decided to part ways with Shields. Having said that, I don’t think it was right to cut him based on the fact that MMA is a sport and the UFC should have the top welterweights in the world fighting in the promotion, regardless of style. Shields, who has recent wins over top-10 ranked Tyron Woodley and Demian Maia as well as other notable career victories over Robbie Lawler, Martin Kampmann, and Carlos Condit, is a dominant grappler and has proven himself as one of the best in the world at his weight class. So while he did fight a grappling-heavy style that some fans didn’t appreciate, he was winning, and at the end of the day that’s what matters. But like Jon Fitch and Yushin Okami last year, Shields just didn’t have the stand-and-bang style preferred by UFC president Dana White covets and thus he lost his job after his recent unanimous decision loss to Hector Lombard. It’s a bad Monday morning for Shields, but he should bounce back soon just like Fitch and Okami did and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he made his way over to WSOF to join them. There’s no telling yet if Shields’ release is just the beginning of a slew of cuts by the UFC this week, but as always keep checking into MMAOB for the latest in MMA news and we’ll update you if any more news about Shields or other fighters being cut becomes available.
