UFC RELEASES SEVERAL FLYWEIGHTS INCLUDING DUSTIN ORTIZ

Heading into 2019, we all guessed there was a fantastic possibility the UFC flyweight division was on its final legs. However, when Henry Cejudo knocked out TJ Dillashaw in the first round of the bout at UFC Fight Night 143, we thought there was an opportunity the division could be spared, particularly since the UFC declared a few other fights at 125lbs for other occasions.
Well, it seems like that may not be the case, as the marketing has allegedly released several different flyweights.
According to Cejudo, who talked to the press this past weekend at UFC Fight Night 144, the UFC has launched top-ranked flyweights Dustin Ortiz and Matheus Nicolau. In addition, John Moraga has been removed from the UFC’s official rankings, indicating he too was published. The UFC hasn’t yet commented if these fighters have really officially been published, but generally it’s up to the fighters to tell the media and fans when that happens. Virtually anytime somebody was removed from the rankings for unknown reasons, though, it is usually because the UFC released them.
Even though the UFC flyweight division is clearly on its way out, the choice to cut an excellent fighter like Ortiz is utterly shocking, and dare I say, dumb. Ortiz is coming off of a competitive unanimous decision loss to Joseph Benavidez at UFC Fight Night 143 that was one of the better fights on that card. There is an opportunity Benavidez gets another crack at Cejudo’s belt, meaning that the UFC just cut Ortiz coming from a title eliminator. And before this Benavidez fight, Ortiz had won three straight fights, such as a mind kick knockout within the aforementioned Nicolau, a decision win over Alexandre Pantoja — a talented flyweight who it appears has been spared by the cuts so much — along with also a 15-second KO over Hector Sandoval that was the fastest knockout in UFC flyweight history. If anything, the UFC must have told Ortiz to move around bantamweight, which Alex Perez seemingly will do (along with fighters such as Said Nurmagomedov). Releasing such a gifted and fighter like Ortiz outright just looks silly.
In terms of Nicolau, he’d won three of his battles from the Octagon before dropping to Ortiz, and although he did not appear to be a title contender, he still provided valuable depth at 125lbs. He additionally holds a notable win over Moraga, who it appears has also got the boot. That. Moraga was actually one of the initial flyweights the UFC signed back in 2012, and even though he had an up-and-down UFC career, he was considered to be a solid gatekeeper and the perfect test for up-and-comers to shoot on. In his last battle, he was knocked out by Deiveson Figueiredo, who seems to be among the couple flyweights the UFC nevertheless has to the roster. There is no reason Moraga could not have stuck around and continued to act in a gatekeeper role. It just seems overly harsh to cut a man who had been one of the few fighters with completing potential in a branch that normally sees struggles go the distance.
At this point, it’s very weird that which the UFC is performing together with the flyweights. If you inquire UFC president Dana White, he says that the promotion hasn’t made a decision on the division, but it seems like every day we are seeing a flyweight get cut, and then the next day we see a flyweight fight booked. It would be fine if the UFC could make up its mind and either cut all the flyweights or keep a complete branch, because now the fighters don’t have any idea what type of job security they have moving forward, and that is not fair to anybody.
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