The UFC’s light-heavyweight division has taken another hit with the news that a ranked contender Nikita Krylov has been released from the promotion.
That decision comes as something of a surprise given that up until recently, Krylov had been riding a five-fight winning streak in the division, defeating the likes of Cody Donovan, Stanislov Nedkov, Marcos Rogério de Lima, Francimar Barroso and Ed Herman.
That came to an end in December of last year when he lost to Misha Cirkunov by guillotine choke at UFC 206, but the 24-year-old prospect was still holding down a spot on the UFC’s official 205lb rankings before his unexpected release.
Last week Dana White also claimed that the man who beat him, Cirkunov was also headed for the exit door after failing to coome to terms on a new deal with the promotion, and with Ryan Bader also believed to be close to signing a deal with Bellator, the UFC’s light-heavyweight division is thinning out at a troubling rate.
The effects of that can already be seen with the fact that Volkan Oezdemir is now ranked at No.9 in the division, despite only having one UFC fight to his name, albeit a split decision win over Ovince St. Preux.
