With the latest season of Dana White’s Contender Series in the books, it seems the UFC is continuing to clean up its active roster.
Earlier this month, no fewer than 15 names were removed from the promotion’s athlete database. Now, as of Tuesday, eight more have joined them (and nine if you count Jake Hadley, whose exit was confirmed last week).
Among these latest names are former UFC women’s strawweight and The Ultimate Fighter 20 alum Jessica Penne, Olympic medalist Robelis Despaigne, and talented Brazilian flyweight Matheus Nicolau. While Penne recently lost her third straight fight, and Despaigne was coming off back-to-back setbacks, Nicolau remains something of a surprise. While he had lost three straight, those losses had all come to top talents, including title challengers in Alex Perez and Brandon Royval.
The total list of names removed from the roster on Tuesday are below. The changes were first noted by UFC Roster Tracker, an automated service that monitor’s the promotion’s fighter database. Removal doesn’t necessarily mean “cut” – retirement (as in the case of Daniel Pineda) or fighting out a contract can also see a fighter removed.
- Jessica Penne
- Robelis Despaigne
- Matheus Nicolau
- Daniel Pineda
- Tamires Vidal
- Vinicius Salvador
- Charalampos Grigoriou
- Jesse Butler
