UFC veteran Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos has been released from the UFC just before Christmas, ending a decade-long run in the promotion.

The 39-year-old Zaleski dos Santos joined the UFC back in May of 2015 with a 14-4 career record at the time and went on to suffer a split-decision loss to Nicolas Dalby in his promotional debut.

However, Zaleski dos Santos rebounded strongly after that by going on a seven-fight winning streak in the welterweight division, beating the likes of Sean Strickland, Max Griffin and Lyman Good along the way.

Then in August of 2019 a TKO loss to Li Jingliang ended his streak and marked the start of a more mix bag of results, going 4-5-1 in the final 10 fights of his UFC career, which included handing Benoit Saint Denis his first career loss.

In the end Zaleski dos Santos bows out of the UFC after an overall 11-6-1 run, with his overall career record now standing at 16-3-1.

Joining Zaleski dos Santos heading out the UFC exit door will be Rinat Fakhretdinov, and that comes as a big surprise given that he has yet to taste defeat in the Octagon, having earned six wins and a draw so far.

The draw actually came against the aforementioned Zaleski dos Santos back in 2023, but apart from that Fakhretdinov has got the better of the likes of Bryan Battle, Kevin Lee and Nicolas Dalby during his time in the promotion.

That means there must be more to the story as to why the UFC hasn’t opted to give Fakhretdinov a new contract after his current one came to an end with a TKO victory over Andreas Gustafsson in September.

Meanwhile, Loik Radzhabov has also been cut from the UFC roster, and that’s more understandable given that he’s only mustered a 2-2 run in the Octagon that started promisingly with a decision win over Esteban Ribovics, but has faded out of the picture in recent times, with his last fight being a decision loss to Trey Ogden back in July of 2024.