The typically dominant middleweight "Hurricane" Gerald Harris (left) delivered an unimpressive performance against Maiquel Falcao at UFC 123 on Saturday, which likely led to him being cut by the UFC. (Photo courtesy of Zuffa, LLC.)
While most UFC 123 spectators will agree that “Hurricane” Gerald Harris (17-3) had an unexpectedly disappointing and lackluster performance against UFC newcomer “Big Rig” Maiquel Falcao (8-1), many were still shocked when it was announced today that Harris had been released from the UFC. To say the cut seems unwarranted is a vast understatement. Prior to his loss at UFC 123, Harris was coasting along on a ten-fight winning streak and boasted an undefeated 3-0 record in the UFC, with two of those victories earning “Knockout of the Night” honors. In his professional MMA career, “Hurricane” finished 15 of his 17 defeated opponents via TKO, KO, or submission, respectively. Clearly, Harris is no chump.
One of the main arguments being used to validate the release of Harris is that he was defeated by a relatively unknown fighter making his UFC debut. Falcao may be a newcomer to the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s fan base, but he certainly is no stranger to the Chute Box community. The Brazilian is a third-degree black belt in Jiu-Jitsu and is well known for annihilating contenders like a hungry lion to a buffalo. Falcao’s official record may only be 8-1, but “Big Rig” has a wealth of unsanctioned battles under his belt with his cumulative record reaching 26-3. An astonishing 21 of his 26 victories came by way of TKO or KO, while three submissions and two decisions comprise the rest of his wins. The vast majority of his opponents never even made it out of the first round. To say that Falcao is anything less than an imposing opponent and a viable threat to the UFC’s middleweight division is nothing short of ignorant. Furthermore, to say that Falcao should have been an easy win for Harris is just plain stupid.
The real issue that needs to be addressed here is why after just one sub-par performance by Harris was he cut from the UFC? There are many other UFC fighters who fit the bill better than Harris for a pink slip. For example – French Canadian welterweight “The Road Warrior” Jonathan Goulet (23-11) never climbed the UFC rankings and has been in-and-out of the organization since his debut at UFC Fight Night 2 in October 2005. Moreover, his record in the UFC is an unimpressive 4-5. “The King of Rock and Rumble” Elvis Sinosic (8-11-2) went 1-6 in the UFC and had six consecutive losses before finally being cut from the organization for what is presumably the final time. The aforementioned may be extreme examples, but why do guys like these survive in the UFC, and formidable contenders like Gerald Harris don’t?
UFC President Dana White said about the Harris’ release: “This is the big leagues man. It’s no different than Major League Baseball, no different than the NFL. You perform, or you go away… I’d rather have two guys in a dog fight and have a guy lose and keep him around than have a guy who’s in the Ultimate Staring Competition for five minutes. Nobody wants to see that [expletive].”
Though White’s statement certainly holds water, few would say that “Hurricane” fits the criteria for being a monotonous, uninteresting, non-UFC-worthy fighter. White may feel justified in his decision to cut Harris from the UFC, but many fans vehemently disagree and can’t help but feel robbed.
I just think there’s more to the story. It seemed odd to me he wasn’t picked up after his run on The Ultimate Fighter. Now, he loses once and is out. Who is his manager? Is he difficult to work with? I just can’t imagine there isn’t more to the story. It’s definitely weird.
It doesn’t seem right. If Harris started doing lay-n-pray every fight or just continuously put on lackluster performances – hell, if he even did it only a second time – then the cut would be somewhat warranted. But he has finished the majority of his fights and in a rather definitive manner. What’s the problem? I don’t know. He was co-hosting Scraps after Pat Barry left, and he genuinely seems like an awesome guy. I can’t imagine there being any personal problems with him. I think Dana just needs to be smarter about who he keeps and gets rid of.
I think this was a silly decision. Straight up, I’ve been a Harris fan since the IFL days & when I heard he was gonna be on TUF, I immediately made him the favorite to win the whole thing. The prediction didn’t come true, but I was glad to see he got his shot eventually.
Fact is that the UFC is in a mode where they need to cut people what with adding bantam & featherweight classes & increasing lightweights. So anyone that loses going forward is in some trouble.
Plus, I am aware that his fight wasn’t all that exciting but that doesn’t necessarily come across boring. Nate Quarry V. Kalib Starnes was boring & all because of Starnes. So maybe this wasn’t all Hurrican Harris’ fault.
What gets me though is how often the UFC will take a fighter that is 0-2 and give him a third fight in the promotion. How many fights did Kyle Bradley get after a 0-2 start? What about Ryan Jensen? And yet, Harris gets cut after one loss even though his prior bouts in the octagon had been crowd pleasing. It was like all that had been forgotten or for nothing.
I honestly can’t remember anyone getting the kind of support that Harris is getting on twitter right now. I hope the UFC & Dana White are paying attention. You don’t need to cut him, put him back in the prelims or maybe a TV match on a fight night if you think you need to send a message.
Rant over! PS. I’m under the influence of sleeping pills, Ambien to be specific, and so if my points don’t seem clear…that’s your reason.
Casey, I completely agree. Also, the examples we cited in the article – Goulet and Sinosic. I respect MMA fighters, but let’s face it, those guys pretty much are chumps. Yet they were given one opportunity after another. There is a long list of guys that were given the same privilege by the UFC. Why now does Dana decide to start cutting guys after ONE bad performance? Harris clearly has so many fans that are pissed about this decision, and are rallying with him to get him back to where he belongs — in the UFC. I don’t know of anyone who considers Harris a boring fighter. If Dana wants to get rid of boring fighters, then he needs to dump the majority of fighters from Greg Jackson’s camp, as well as a few AKA guys. Buh-bye Gray Maynard and Jon Fitch!
Oh, and BRING BACK BEN SAUNDERS!
I agree there has to be more than just the loss. Because if it’s one bad round out of 4 otherwise stellar fights, that seems pretty ridiculous. And unless Dana comes out and says why he got cut, most fighters will assume it’s because he lost and they need to thin their roster due to the WEC merger. And the result of that will most likely be more fighters fighting boring, safe fights because they’re afraid if they lose even once, they may get cut. This is supposedly the opposite of what Dana wants according to his recent comment about Nate Marquardt and the Greg Jackson camp.
Just insane.
There’s more to this than “just a loss”. However while I’m a huge fan of Harris, i have to admit that most of his stardom and fanbase only came from his slam towards Dave Branch despite his dominating wins over Mario Miranda and John Salter. That said perhaps from a business standpoint, Dana may have gave him the axe to save face. After all, how embarrassing could it be if you have a man who gave one of the most vicious slams of the year suddenly get dismantled by a newcomer to the UFC?
As I said I’m a huge Hurricane fan and if anything this loss will only step his game up. He’ll go back (hopefully) to training, run a few gigs and wins over, than get back in the UFC. I truly find it hard to believe that this one loss is what got him cut. Perhaps he gave some attitude (with that smile, how can one believe he would?) showing he got lazy i.e. Escudero or not wanting to step up i.e. Duffy. Only Dana and Gerald (and those management types in between would)
Bitter about the cut but i’m sure at 31 years old, we’ll see Gerald Harris get back in the octagon before he calls it a day.
Guess that shows how bad ass my boy Falcao is! And dont forget cut Eliot Marshall after his first loss. He was 3-1.
Having known Gerald since our high school days I can honestly say that he is one of the most interesting, polite, and humble people ever. The guy was not even afraid to be the high school mascot, and a great one by the way. I know he is devastated right now but I also know the man and not just the fighter. He was never afraid to to wear his faith on his sleeve so in following his example I would like to say that I have complete faith in him to keep on keeping on with his training and his career. There are a lot of great fighters out there, but not many with the kind of strength in charachter and dedication like Gerald Harris. The world doesn’t just toss away people like that, we look up to them. Keep it up Gerald the UFC doesn’t deserve you! And to all the haters you know how it goes, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog!
He fought scared. If he would’ve fought like Clay Guida or Roger Huerta when they’re clearly behind in a fight, he’d still be around. He didn’t try to win, he just wanted to survive. Observers of the fight were curious as to why he didn’t push the pace despite being down by two rounds, it wasn’t two close rounds either, he wasn’t in the fight and he had a opportunity to stage a comeback or at least attempt to win. He squandered the chance. Dana is interested in promoting the most exciting sport in the world, he can’t achieve that with fighters that don’t try to win against all odds. So he cut Hurricane to give him some time to get his heart up, either he wants to be a fighter or he’s a poser. If he’s a fighter, he’ll be back. He met his match in Maciel, but he never really approached the fight with a solid gameplan, he was throwing off-balanced bombs and weak shots at takedowns. I challenge him to get his game up and improve his skills and come back, better and stronger. A friend of mine wants a rematch.
My programmer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on a variety of websites for about a year and am worried about switching to another platform. I have heard fantastic things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress posts into it? Any kind of help would be really appreciated!