He might not be a household name, but heavyweight Martin Buday posted a 7-1 record through eight fights inside the UFC octagon.
Yet despite coming off a win over Marcus Buchecha, a highly-respected Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion and former ONE Championship athlete, Buday is now out of a job.
Slovakia’s Buday (16-2) confirmed the news on social media recently. “Yeah its true, yesterday we got a call that [UFC] is not resigning us for the moment… well it is what it is at least I’m leaving with my head up. Thank you,” the heavyweight wrote in a brief statement.
Buday had actually won three straight fights dating back to last June. His victory over Buchecha came at UFC Abu Dhabi just last weekend.
The move is not the first puzzling release to come in the UFC’s new era, where bodies are cheap and constantly fed to the promotion by way of Dana White’s Contender Series — a pipeline Martin Buday himself is a product of.
That, combined with six decisions among his seven wins and the UFC seemingly pulling out of Europe with the exception of England and France, at least in terms of live events, might explain the promotion’s decision not to re-sign the heavyweight. Still, the UFC’s shallowest division needs winning big men, and Buday is most certainly a winner. It’s a head-scratching move on the surface, and not the first one.
Taylor Lapilus was allowed to walk off back-to-back wins after posting a 3-1 record in his second stint with the company. He had also parted ways after posting a 3-1 record in his first run, coming off two straight wins when he made his exit that time as well.
Shane Burgos was allowed to slip away to the PFL (where things didn’t exactly go well for him), a move even Dana White would eventually admit was a mistake. Likewise, another talented heavyweight, Karl Williams, was allowed to walk off a single loss and a 3-1 UFC record, also to be snatched up by the PFL.
When high-value names like Francis Ngannou fail to come to terms after a protracted contract dispute, you can look at a failed negotiation like a bidding war in any other sport. Buday, however, wasn’t about to break the bank. He easily belonged in the top 15 of the UFC’s heavyweight division. In short, he was a solid mid-card talent, whose biggest drawback might be either his lack of finishes, or his ability to defeat fighters deemed more “exciting.”
If MMA is still a sport and not just a spectacle (and that’s been debatable for years) however, Buday is exactly the sort of fighter that should stick around.
