In a shock move, talented Mexican featherweight fighter Yair Rodriguez has been released from the UFC after refusing match-ups offered to him by the promotion.
Earlier this week White had stated that Rodriguez would fight Zabit Magomedsharipov at UFC 227 in Los Angeles on August 4th, but it seems the 25-year-old wasn’t on-board with the idea and responded by cryptically posting, “#fakenews” on his Twitter page.
Apparently this isn’t the first time that Rodriguez has turned down a fight recently, and as such he’s incurred the wrath of White.
“The guy’s off a year, rejects a fight with Lamas and then doesn’t want to fight a guy below him in the rankings?” White told the LA Times. “He can go somewhere else. We have no use for him. He calls that fight fake news. This is real news.”
Not so long ago Rodriguez was considered one of the most exciting rising stars in the sport, having compiled a six-fight winning streak at 145lbs in impressive fashion, defeating the likes of BJ Penn, Alex Caceres and Andre Fili along the way.
However, that then led him to a major step-up in competition in his last outing against Frankie Edgar at UFC 217 in May of last year that saw him get dominated and handed a second round TKO loss.
