Heavyweight Dave “Pee-Wee” Herman (20-2) has been released from his Sengoku Raiden Championship contract and has immediately signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. This is the second fighter released by SRC this last week after their middleweight champ, Jorge Santiago was let go and he too has reportedly signed with the UFC.
MMAFighting.com confirmed the news with Herman’s manager Shu Hirata who noted they sought a release from the contract when SRC promoter World Victory Road announced they would be delaying their upcoming April event, which Herman was to have taken part of.
Herman’s manager did not allude to a debut date for his fighter or an opponent.
“Immediately after (I signed Herman), we began communicating with World Victory Road about Dave’s first fight in 2011 because he had one fight left in his four-fight contract. In the second week of January we found out that the earliest SRC would do a show is in April. That article in Kamipro magazine came out, then the another article in Gong that triggered SRC to cancel their April show, so the timing was actually perfect for Dave to be released and move on with the another promotion. None of these rumors were pointing towards the bright future of the Japanese MMA. On top of this, its not like the SRC has the well-established heavyweight division (with Japanese stars) therefore, we have decided to communicate with the WVR / SRC about releasing Dave so he can sign the lucrative deals in the North America.”
Herman has won two straight and is 5-1 in his last six fights. He last appeared at the Dec. 30 SRC – Soul of Fight event, earning a unanimous decision against Yoshihiro Nakao at the Japanese show. Before that he stopped Michal Kita by omoplata submission at Bellator 31 in September.
UPDATE: According to MMAWeekly.com Herman will make his UFC debut in June at UFC 131 against Rob “The Bear” Broughton (15-5-1).
Broughton debuted with the UFC last October at UFC 120, winning his fifth straight fight by submitting Vinicius Queiroz on the preliminary card of the event. He’s fought for the ZT Fight Night and M-1 Global promotions in his seven fights before joining the UFC, recording a 6-1 record and owns a mix of wins via knockout, submission or decision throughout his professional career.