The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was live this past Saturday night (April 23, 2016) with UFC 197: Jones vs St Preux and featured a solid night of action. Now with the fun night of scraps in our rear-view, let’s take a look at which of the evenings competitors we may no longer see in action inside the Octagon… ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK Anthony Pettis “Showtime” has dropped three fights in a row for the first time in his professional mixed martial arts career and for the first time feels his back against the wall. Generally, three straight losses would be more than enough for the UFC to cut a fighter, but I am fairly confident Pettis will get another chance, if not two more. They will not want to risk losing him to Bellator. I would guess that he gets paired up in a more favorable match-up his next time out, perhaps against the winner of Jim Miller vs Takanori Gomi. Clint Hester After dropping back to back fights by TKO in the middleweight division, Hester made the move up to light heavyweight where he was met by Marcos Rogerio De Lima, who dropped Hester with a counter and then submitted him with an arm triangle choke following some violent ground and pound. After suffering three straight losses, I think it is almost a sure thing that the promotion will be releasing him from his contract, and I doubt he will be making his way back to the big show for a second stint. Efrain Escudero Following this past weends close decision loss to Kevin Lee, Escudero is now 2-3 in his third stint with the promotion and 5-7 in total. That’s right, I said THIRD stint, meaning he has been cut and brought back two times now, and following the loss to Lee, he could very well be getting released a third straight time. That said, I would not be surprised to see him string together a few more wins and make it back for a fourth stint, as crazy as that sounds.
