Apparently Yair Rodriguez is no longer a UFC fighter.
The season one winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America was informed of his release by the UFC for refusing to take a fight for UFC 227 on Aug. 4. The news was first reported by the LA Times early Friday morning; MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani later confirmed the report, and added that the UFC has only informed Rodriguez of his release, but has yet to officially cut him from the roster.
According to sources, Rodriguez was offered two opponents for the UFC 227 event in Los Angeles: veteran Ricardo Lamas and Zabit Magomedsharipov. According to the LA Times, UFC president Dana White said that Rodriguez turned down a fight with Lamas, and when reports came out saying that Rodriguez was set to face Magomedsharipov, Rodriguez tweeted the hashtag “#FakeNews”.
The UFC president wasn’t happy about that.
“The guy’s off a year, rejects a fight with Lamas and then doesn’t want to fight a guy below him in the rankings?” White told the LA Times. “He can go somewhere else. We have no use for him.
”He calls that fight fake news. This is real news.”
White later took matters to Twitter too, Tweeting: