It looks like Dana White has made a decision I agree with for once -- cutting Tim Sylvia loose even though there's one more fight on his contract. The thing with Big Timmeh is, he's not only boring and fairly expensive, he's dangerous. So paying him for that last fight will not only cost the UFC $100,000+ it will potentially damage the fighter that Sylvia faces and beats (see Vera, Brandon). I must say, it's an unusual lapse in shittyness that they didn't just refuse to book Big Tim's last fight for six more months to a year and then put him on the undercard against Jake O'Brien like they did to Arlovski. Perhaps they WANT Big Tim to jump ship to the competition.
That's what Fightlinker thinks anyway. Sam Caplan notes the sudden hemorraging of top heavyweights from the UFC and suggests that Dana re-sign Josh Barnett. Leland Rolling does a survey of the promotions that Big Tim could sign with and concludes it'll either be EliteXC directly or M-1/Monte Cox who will then sub-contract him to EliteXC. Personally if I was Gary Shaw, I'd stay far far away from Tim Sylvia. If he gets in there and KTFO's Antonio Silva and/or Ricco Rodriguez, you're going to look kind of foolish keeping him away from Kimbo Slice for the rest of his contract. And Big Tim would put a hurt on Kimbo.
MMA Junkie speculates that it will indeed be M-1 that signs Sylvia. That would be a wonderfully bad move for both parties.
Get the latest gear
