Dana White has opened up on the UFC’s decision to release Alistair Overeem and Junior dos Santos.
Earlier this week, it was reported both heavyweight legends were released from the promotion. Dana White had said 60 fighters would be released and some would be high-profile names. According to the UFC boss, releasing dos Santos and Overeem was pretty self-explanatory.
“Nothing happened behind the scenes,” White said to TMZ Sports. “They’re both great guys who have had incredible careers here. First of all, people get cut every week. I think those two are pretty self-explanatory. It’s nothing negative, it’s just part of the sport. If you look up what they’ve done recently, you look at their age, you look at everything that’s going on, it’s pretty self-explanatory.”
Dana White also makes it clear nothing happened behind the scenes to cause these cuts. He also praised Overeem and dos Santos.
However, although their relationship was great, White admits the age of both men caused a factor in their release.
“It’s not even that (our relationship) ran its course,” White concluded. “The one thing, age gets us all. Those guys are getting – I’m sitting here talking about how good they are, I don’t want to sit here and s*** on them, but listen, we all get old. We cut people every week. Every week, people come and people go.”
Alistair Overeem is coming off a TKO loss to Alexander Volkov. He had mentioned this was his final run towards a heavyweight title shot. Before the loss to the Russian, Overeem TKO’d Augusto Sakai and Walt Harris.
Junior dos Santos, meanwhile, is on a four-fight losing streak with all four losses coming by knockout. He most recently fought at UFC 256 losing to Ciryl Gane. During his losing streak, he also lost to Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Curtis Blaydes, and Francis Ngannou.
Where Overeem and dos Santos will sign is currently uncertain at this point.
