A report from last Saturday noted that former Sengoku middleweight champion Jorge Santiago (23-8) had signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship and would likely make his debut against Brian Stann at UFC 130.
In a recent interview with Tatame.com, the American Top Team fighter denied the story about signing with the top promotion and says that a fight with Stann is just people talking right now.
Santiago was recently released by the Sengoku Raiden Championship promotion despite holding being their middleweight title holder, the champ cited a lack of opponents as one of the reasons he wanted to get released by the Japanese promotion so he could fight in America again. The promotion also recently released heavyweight Dave “Pee Wee” Herman who signed with the UFC soon afterwords.
People are talking a lot about you leaving Sengoku for UFC… What’s true about it?
The truth is that I asked to be dismissed from Sengoku, because there were no reasons to be there anymore, I didn’t have opponents to fight. The time is going by and I wanted to come here because the top athletes are here, I want to belong to this crew. It’s not a total lie what they’ve been saying, me and UFC are almost getting to an agreement, we’ve also talked a lot with Strikeforce and, these days, we’ll decide with whom we’ll sign up.On the United States you had offers from Strikeforce and UFC. Why are you more likely to sign with UFC?
Man, I can’t yet confirm it because I haven’t signed. The fact I came to the United States was because the market here is huge, the athlete gets more recognition.People were speculating about a bout between you and Brian Stann…
There was a talk about when I could fight, they realize I could be on this card, so people started talking… I haven’t signed anything. And I believe he also hasn’t. They’ve removed this fight from their website, because it was supposed to be him against Wanderlei, so let’s see. Maybe, if I sign with UFC, I fight this guy, since people has started talking about it.