(The ballsiest fighter to ever step foot in the octagon. *rimshot*)
Well, we called this one.
In his past three fights, longtime MMA veteran Dennis Hallman has made some startling (not to mention amateur) choices to say the least. After losing a bet to his friend that resulted in one of the most horrifying wardrobe malfunctions of all time against Brian Ebersole at UFC 133, Dennis showed up two and a half pounds overweight for his fight against John Makdessi at UFC 140 and was subsequently fined 20% of his purse. Luckily for him, he was able to pick up a win. Unfortunately for him, he apparently took nothing away from the close call, and showed up seven pounds overweight at yesterday’s weigh-ins. His scheduled opponent, Thiago Tavares, basically treated the situation with an “Are you serious, bro?” but was able to strike a deal with Hallman that if he could get down to only 3 pounds over the limit, the fight would be on.
Hallman was allegedly able to do so, but Tavares then asked him to cut an additional pound, at which point Hallman asked to be removed from the card and became the most recent UFC fighter to join the unemployment line. And let’s not even get into the fact that we were so confident that he would beat Tavares that we put him in one of our surefire parlays, which is now TOTALLY RUINED. Being a sixteen year veteran of the sport, it became obvious that something was apparently not right in the Hallman household, and he relayed this message to both Dana White and MMAFighting earlier today:
They are cutting me. Dana [White] gave me my show and win pay to help me deal with the mountain in front of me. Now I have to go make weight a couple times on the regional circuit. I’ll be back to the UFC though, I always am.
I’m having some personal issues at home. I’m not fit to fight. I told Dana [White] what my issues were. He understands family matters, and he was cool with me not fighting.
Interesting that Hallman received both his show and win money whereas Tavares only received his show money, but the fact that it’s basically severance pay for the time being makes it far more understandable.
Hallman also told MMAFighting that he was apparently only two pounds over the weight at the day of the weigh-ins, but passed out and received intravenous fluids which brought him back up to seven pounds over.
Fresh off a win over Makdessi and holding a professional record of 51-14, Hallman first debuted in the UFC way back at UFC 29, where he would score his second victory over Matt Hughes via first round submission, becoming the only fighter to ever do so. Hallman also holds notable UFC wins over Bellator muay Thai machine Ben Saunders and Karo Parisyan.
We would like to wish Dennis all the best in his future, and sincerely hope that he is able to overcome whatever personal issues he is currently facing.
We’ve added a video of Hallman’s first victory over Hughes, which went down at EC 21 in Wisconsin in 1998, below.