George Roop
In the preliminary round George Roop beat Roli Delgado (who would later come back to the show as a replacement) by decision. Despite suffering from a suspected broken hand he then progressed in the competition with a win over John Polakowski, but fell short of a semi-final spot after losing by kimura to Philipe Nover.
Roop had done enough to earn a place in the season finale, but narrowly lost out to Shane Nelson by split decision. Despite the loss he was kept on by the UFC, and subsequently went on to seize his first official UFC win by defeating Dave Kaplan. At UFC 101 Roop faced yet another former TUF competitor George Sotiropolous and again he lost by kimura. With a record 1-2 in the octagon, Roop was then released by the UFC.
After ending the year with a win at Rage In The Cage to improve his record to 9-6, Roop found himself back under Zuffa’s wing via the WEC promotion. Remarkably the 6ft fighter dropped two weight classes to compete at 135lbs for his first fight with Eddie Wineland at WEC 46 in January. It turned out to be an unsuccessful debut as he lost the via unanimous decision.
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