Last week the UFC released four fighters, including two well-known veterans in Elias Theodorou and Wilson Reis. While it came as less of a surprise that the promotion decided to cut the Reis, given his record of 1-4 in his last five fights, eyebrows were raised when Theodorou’s name was listed.
The decision to cut the 30-year-old “Spartan” on the back of a single decision loss to Derek Brunson hasn’t sat too well with some as the Canadian held a respectable 8-3 record during his time in the UFC including a three-fight winning streak coming into that bout. Theodorou’s performance against Brunson was met with great frustration from the home crowd as he kept moving away from his opponent rather than engaging, which apparently sealed his fate in the promotion.
This week, UFC color commentator Joe Rogan stated on his “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that he didn’t agree with the decision to cut Theodorou given his success in the promotion since he debuted back in 2014.
“Obviously I’m a giant fan of the UFC,” Rogan said. “I love them to death. I am so happy and I would do nothing for any other organization. I would never want to work for any other organization. But I don’t like the way they do things. There are a lot of things I don’t like. They just cut Elias Theodorou. One loss [to] Derek Brunson, cut. Like explain that. How do you explain that? That one doesn’t make any sense.”