Isaac Dulgarian headed into his fight against Yadier del Valle at UFC Fight Night 263 on Saturday night as a solid favorite, but suffered a disappointing first round submission loss and was then released from the promotion.

The 29-year-old Dulgarian’s dismissal was unexpected given that up until this fight he had been a highly regarded prospect who had won two of his three bouts in the promotion.

The official reason for Dulgarian’s release is believed to be due to his performance according to Ariel Helwani, but meanwhile he noted that there has been controversy regarding potentially suspicious betting behavior leading up to the fight on the main card of the show at the UFC Apex.

“Isaac Dulgarian, who was submitted last night by Yadier del Valle, has been released by the UFC, sources say,” Helwani wrote. “He was released today. The official reason was attributed to last night’s loss, however, the bout has been the center of controversy after a ton of money started to come in on Dulgarian, a sizable favorite, to lose in the first, which is what happened.”

A first round defeat for Dulgarian, aka ‘The Midwest Choppa’, didn’t appear to be the most likely outcome given that he’d had only lost once in his nine-fight career prior to Saturday night, with that being via split-decision against Christian Rodriguez back in March of last year.

Considering that Dulgarian is a skilled wrestler who also has three submission wins on his record, the commentary team on Saturday night were taken by surprise at his questionable technique and decision-making in the opening round of his fight with ‘The Cuban Problem’ de Valle, something that Michael Chiesa then went all-in on during his analysis on the post-fight show.

“This is where it just looked like Dulgarian was a little bit lost,” Chiesa said as he watched the replay. “As you can see, del Valle’s working this rear-naked choke, and Dulgarian’s not fighting the top hand, he’s attacking the choke hand. Once he gets the hands broken apart, he starts to punch, and you don’t punch in these positions you’ve got to fight the hands. Look at this, he goes to peel the choking hand, let’s it go, and then at one point he starts to punch again. I’m just thinking to myself, ‘Are you just lost because del Valle is just so strong. You got your first takedown stuffed, are you lost, are you out of sorts,’ going back to punching del Valle while he’s behind him.

“And then this was the beginning of the end right here. Del Valle switches to hand-on-bicep and it’s a shallow grip. Look at this. Switches to hand-on-bicep, the top hand is right there for the taking. It gets right on the forehead and look at this, he doesn’t even try to peel it. It’s right there for the taking. Del Valle’s not even stretching the body, he doesn’t even peel the top hand, I just don’t know if he was just surprised that del Valle stuffed the first takedown. Did he think he was just going to buzz through the guy? Del Valle just had him lost and had him out of sorts, that’s jiu-jitsu 101.

“If you’re on the main card of a UFC, it’s one thing if you kind of just get punched into submission, but a lot of Day 1 mistakes,” Chiesa continued. “You could even hear on the broadcast, what is this guy doing? You peel the top hand, you don’t punch behind you. That is the most useless strike you can possibly throw.

“I’m sitting here on the pre-show hyping you up as a guy that can go into the top 5 and win fights and it doesn’t even look like you could fight somebody in the bottom of the top 500. I’ve got to be honest, that was an F-minus performance. It was absolute trash.”

It’s important to stress at this stage that despite suspicions regarding the abnormal betting behavior, there has been no formal accusations regarding Dulgarian’s performance.

Meanwhile though, several sportsbooks have spoken out regarding the fight however, with William Hill US and Ceaser’s Sportbook both offering compensation to those who had put money on Dulgarian to win, while DraftKings acknowledged they were monitoring the situation.

At the time of writing Dulgarian has yet to speak out on either the loss or his release from the promotion.