The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) went to Salt Lake, City, UT, for the first time in promotional history with UFC Fight Night 92: Rodriguez vs Caceres. Following the night of entertaining action, let’s take a look at which of the evening’s competitors we may no longer see in batte inside the Octagon… ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK Rony Jason Jason was dominated for the majority of three rounds by Dennis Bermudez for a unanimous decision defeat on the judges’ scorecards, making him winless in three bouts. He would have been coming off a win prior to the Bermudez bout, however his submission victory over Damon Jackson was turned into a No Contest when the Brazilian failed his post-fight drug test. Now following the one-sided defeat, I think there’s a decent chance that Jason receives the pink slip from the UFC, especially considering how much the promotion frowns upon drug test offenders. One could say they gave Jason a difficult stylistic match-up as punishment. I think it is 50/50 whether they release him or not; I could see him getting another chance, mostly because he is their original TUF: Brazil winner. Dominique Steele Steele scored a third round knockout of Dong Hyun Kim in his promotional debut, but unfortunately his luck ended there, as he went on to lose a unanimous decision to Leon Edwards his next time out inside the Octagon, and followed that up with a unanimous decision loss to Court McGee in his most recent outing. I think there’s a fair chance that the UFC releases him after the two fight skid, but I hope they don’t, because he has continued to show improvement from fight to fight. In fact, some people think he won both of his decision losses and deserves to be 3-0 in the UFC. Regardless of what the promotion decides to do with “Non-Stop Action-Packed,” I will not be surprised. Viktor Pesta Pesta made his UFC debut against Ruslan Magomedov more than two years ago, losing the bout via unanimous decision victory on the judges’ scorecards. He hurt and nearly finished Magomedov in the opening round, but the Dagestani fighter survived to come back and win the second and third rounds for the unanimous nod from the judges at Octagon-side. Following the defeat, which marked the first of his professional mixed martial arts career, Pesta scored a big upset win over Konstantin Erokhin, defeating the Russian via unanimous decision. In an effort to make it two in a row for himself inside the Octagon, Pesta took on Derrick Lewis and was up two rounds heading into the third round, where his cardio failed him and he ulimately suffered a knockout loss, making it the first time he had been stopped in his career. Hoping to bounce back into the win column, the 26 year old Alliance MMA product took on Polish heavyweight Marcin Tybura and suffered a headkick knockout in the second round. The sour defeat puts him at 1-3 in the UFC, with back to back knockout losses. I think it is more than likely that Pesta will be released from his contract, but considering his young age and the fact that the heavyweight division is razor-thin, I think he should be given another chance, and I would not be surprised if he gets one.
