Longtime Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) matchmaker and Senior Vice President of Talent Relations, Joe Silva, is retiring from the world’s preeminent mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion by the end of the year.
More on that story here.
Taking over for Silva will be former assistant and longtime ZUFFA employee Sean Shelby. But UFC has several hundred fighters in its employ, so Shelby will get some help from ex-Legacy Fighting Championship promoter Mick Maynard.
MMA Fighting breaks down their respective duties.
Shelby now oversees the women’s strawweight and bantamweight divisions, as well as the men’s bantamweight, featherweight, lightweight and welterweight divisions, the latter two being new additions to his duties. Meanwhile, Maynard oversees the men’s flyweight, middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions.
No more lives for sale, thank goodness.
The retirement of Joe Silva is just one of many changes UFC can expect over the next several weeks. After selling to WME | IMG earlier this year (details), the promotion has slowly-but-surely started to thin the herd restructure its executive team.
To the tune of 60-80 employees.
In addition, several fighters have been released from their contracts and the rumor mill has UFC scaling back its number of annual events, though nothing has been confirmed at this time.
Stay tuned.