UFC releases Duffee

UFC releases heavyweight prospect Todd Duffee
by John Morgan on Sep 07, 2010 at 7:20 pm ET
Heavyweight prospect Todd Duffee (6-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) is a free agent.

A little more than one year after Duffee burst onto the UFC scene with a seven-second knockout of Tim Hague, the 24-year-old is no longer employed by the sport's largest mixed martial arts promotion.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) learned of the UFC's decision from multiple sources with knowledge of the move, and Duffee's manager, Alex Davis, confirmed the report.

Davis declined to comment further on the matter or speculate as to the reason behind the UFC's decision.

Duffee wasn't immediately available for comment when contacted by MMAjunkie.com.

Following his record-breaking win over Hague (officially the fastest knockout in UFC's history), Duffee was defeated by Mike Russow at UFC 114 in one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the organization's history. Duffee was in control of the fight for the first two-and-a-half rounds before a right hand left him flat on his back.

Nevertheless, Duffee was targeted for a bout with Jon Madsen at October's UFC 121 event. A lingering knee injury forced him out of the planned contest, and Gilbert Yvel stepped in to take the fight.

It's not immediately evident what Duffee plans to do next, but the massive heavyweight will undoubtedly demand interest from organizations both U.S-based and overseas.

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Quite surprised he has been released. He was a decent prospect despite losing against Russow. Maybe they have a plan for him to get a bit more experience outside the UFC then come back after a few wins. If not then it seems a very premature release

just saw this too - was about to post. Seems wuite surprising to me. Maybe there is something to this that is not being made public?

Before the Russow fight they had started to hype him up, and despite that loss, he really dominated the fight 100%.

I guess he'll be snapped up by Strikeforce unless, as you say, he's coming back to UFC later....

apparently it was a catalogue of reasons.....#1 being hie "attitude"

Interesting....wonder what that means?

Maybe he wasn't happy fighting so low down and wanted fast tracked up the pecking order despite his loss?

Or maybe he just didn't want to be cuddled by Jon Madsen for 15 minutes....?!

Todd Duffee is ducking Jon Madsen!



Seriously though this is a pretty big surprise. Hope Strikeforce snap him up, Duffee vs Fedor, make it happen Coker!

There's definitley more than meets the eye here, he must have done something else.

Either way I think he would be a good signing for SF, Dream or even MFC.

Duffee's manager Alex Davis...

Well, I’m not sure exactly what the problem or problems were. I tryed [sic] hard to avoid, but Dana wasn’t listening. It unfortunate, but Todd’s an ass.

However, he has since claimed that his message got cut off and what he meant to say was...

It’s unfortunate, but Todd’s an ASSET and he will keep on fighting. He is a young kid and gets a lot of attention.

Duffee's response...

I’ve had every emotion there is to have. Right now, I’m just kind of numb… I don’t know what happened. I first heard from my manager, Alex Davis, about a week ago that I might get cut. I have some friends that fight for other organizations, and they actually told me they had heard a rumor that I was about to be released, too… Emotionally, I’m hurt. I’m hurt more than anything because I don’t know why. As a man, you just want to hear why so you can understand… I’ve lost a lot of things this year. I went from losing the biggest fight of my life to losing my dad two weeks later to losing my best friend a week after that. I lost a coach, and now I’ve lost my job. At this point, it isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to me. There are people who would kill to be in my situation, and I just have to stay positive and keep moving forward – tuck your chin and keep moving forward… I think the best is yet to come. I think this is a part of it, and we’ll just kind of see what happens. In five or six years we may just look back and laughing about this. That’s my goal… I know the UFC is running a business, and they’re going to do what’s best for them at the end of the day. I’m not going to harbor any hard feelings or anything like that. I’m just going to roll with punches. It’s been a year of a lot of tough losses, but I think you grow from that. It’s been a good run of bad luck. I’m just trying to stay positive and learn from these life experiences.

He's supposed to be a complete cock.

the guy expected a title shot because he was young (even after a cro cop loss) what is dana meant to say other than no.