Never have a bad match in front of Dana White.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik learned that the hard way following his loss to Sergei Pavlovich at UFC Saudi Arabia. But it wasn’t just the fact that he lost. The match was widely frowned upon by most fans and critics. Rozenstruik was released a couple of days later.
The UFC Heavyweight came into the promotion and impressed many by getting wins over former UFC Heavyweight Champions Andrei Arlovski and Alistair Overeem. Following his win against Overeem, Rozenstruik was riding a 10 - 0 win/loss record and he challenged Francis Ngannou for the heavyweight belt.
Unfortunately, Francis made quick work of the 36-year-old by getting a knockout victory within 20 seconds of the first round. Since then, Rozenstruik has struggled to recapture the magic that led him to getting a UFC title shot in the first place. However, things were looking up for Rozenstruik as he did come into UFC Saudi Arabia on a two-fight winning streak.
But Dana White has never been a man shy of expressing his feelings about his fighters and he didn’t hold back on the Sergei/Rozenstruik fight Saturday:
"Horrible. Horrible fight...Sergei won. He won the fight . Wasn’t fun to watch. The only fight all night that got booed. But he won at the end of the day. Styles make fights and it’s not like he’s normally in bad fights, the guy comes in throws hard punches and tonight just wasn’t fun."
White added to his previous comments:
"Francis [Ngannou] and Derrick Lewis is probably one of the s****iest fights of all time... But you look at those two separately, it wasn’t their night tonight. But it doesn’t diminish what Sergei is capable of doing. ”
Luckily for Sergei, White still sees value in the heavyweight, even though he came in on a two-fight skid.
There are plenty of reasons why White will release a fighter. While the fight was bad, it’s also possible that the UFC CEO just didn’t see much value in Rozenstruik following the huge loss. This is all speculation on my end, but White has discussed his process of cutting fighters in the past.
Thus far, White hasn’t addressed releasing Rozenstruik. The former UFC Heavyweight has been pretty quiet on his end as well. UFC has been releasing a string of high profile fighters as of late including Holly Holm, Chris Weidman, and Tony Ferguson. It’s never fun to see talented names released, but hopefully, Rozenstruik does well in his future endeavors.