Looks like if former UFC fighter Rousimar Palhares wants to continue competing in professional MMA in the near future, he is going to be headed back to the regional scene.
World Series of Fighting President Ray Sefo just told MMA Weekly that he won’t even consider looking at “Toquinho” until he learns to be more concerned about the safety of his opponents.
“His past is not good,” explained Sefo. “The team and I have talked about it. He needs to probably seek some sort of help or talk to somebody, a psychiatrist or whatever, that can help him get away from hurting fighters.
“Until he does that, we won’t look at signing him anytime soon or anything like that.”
WSOF welterweight Jon Fitch, a long-time UFC fighter who recently stated he would decline a bout with Palhares, also added to the conversation with MMA Weekly about why he wasn’t a good fit for WSOF.
“For Palhares, it seems to be a recurring thing,” said Fitch. “It’s happened twice in the UFC, and in his grappling matches it’s happened a number of times.
“It’s just not what our sport is. I mean, we’re trying to beat each other up, but when somebody concedes and gives up, you don’t continue to crank on the submissions. You can end somebody’s career that way. It’s just uncalled for.”
Palhares, a highly respected Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, was cut from the UFC after holding onto a heel hook after Mike Pierce tapped out at their UFC Fight Night 29 encounter earlier this month.
As Fitch noted, this was just the latest incident in Palhares‘ long track record of this kind of behavior.
Speaking on Ariel Helwani‘s The MMA Hour today, the 33-year-old bulky Brazilian competitor admitted that he held onto the submission too long, but maintains he did not do it intentionally, per MMA Fighting.
While his manager, Alex Davis, also told Helwani that Palhares has job offers from other fight promotions, the latest news from WSOF has to sting a little since Bellator has also ruled out negotiating with the controversial fighter.
Now that the “big three” companies in the fight world have ruled out working with the leg-lock specialist, it will be interesting to see if Palhares finds a new home before the end of the year.
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com