Former UFC fighter George Gurgel fights on the undercard of this weekend’s Strikeforce: Marquardt Vs Saffiedine event and in a new interview he offers up some interesting information on the fate of the fighters on the promotion’s last ever show.
“The winners go back to the UFC, and the losers get released, just like that,” Gurgel tells MMAJunkie.
If true that’s certainly going to up the ante for the fighters slated to appear on the card and puts a lot of pressure on their shoulders. However, while there may well be a grain of truth to it I’m not convinced that the UFC are going to follow this rule to the letter.
For example I think that headliners Nate Marquardt and Tarec Saffiedine are both good enough to make the transition over the UFC, win or lose. I suspect the same might be true for Gegard Mousasi and Mike Kyle’s main card fight.
Conveniently a number of the better known fighters on the card like Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett, Roger Gracie and Tim Kennedy are all fighting guys who, on paper at least, they should beat, but even if they were to lose I’d still expect them (with the possible exception of Barnett who has long-standing problems with the UFC) to be brought on-board.
I think what it does mean however is that these fighters have to be on their toes and can’t just assume that regardless of the outcome that they are ‘safe’ and will be joining the UFC automatically, while in a few cases, such as KJ Noons Vs Ryan Couture and for Gurgel himself against the relatively unknown Adriano Martins winning or losing may indeed make or break their chances of making the switch.
