(Photo courtesy of daylife.com.)

Well, it looks like the Octagon will be short one dreadlocked Camaroonian. Multiple sources have confirmed that charismatic Team Quest fighter Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou has been released from his fight contract following his TKO loss to light-heavyweight up-and-comer Luis Cane at UFC 89 last month; the defeat dropped Soko’s UFC record down to 1-2, and his overall record to 5-3. Though he entered the UFC on a wave of hype last year with quick knockout victories over PRIDE stars Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Ricardo Arona under his belt, Sokodjou’s relative inexperience was exposed in his unsuccessful debut against Lyoto Machida, and now he’s been pink-slipped to sharpen up his game elsewhere.

Speaking of fighters who never lived up to the promise of their pre-UFC performances, Rich Franklin‘s BFF Jorge Gurgel has been cut — despite winning a $60,000 Fight of the Night bonus at UFC 91 — and picked up by Strikeforce. Gurgel’s decision loss to Aaron Riley earlier this month was just another frustrating example of Gurgel brawling his way to defeat rather than use the fearsome jiu-jitsu that earned him a 9-1 record (with all wins by submission) before being signed by the UFC. Within the Octagon, Gurgel went 3-4, with all but one fight going to a decision.

Though he told MMA Junkie that the cut was "very humiliating" and "a crushing of my childhood dream," he also sounded hopeful in a press release distributed by Strikeforce, saying "To me, this is like a new start. I’m coming in fresh…I make some bad decisions because I have too much fun. I have never used my Jiu Jitsu in the UFC…[people] ask me why I don’t use my Jiu-Jitsu. I have so much fun standing up and I completely think I’m winning all the time…I will always bring the same intensity and I’m always going to fight 110 percent. I just want to be able to use everything that I know."

UFC 91 PPV numbers and more after the jump…

– Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer is reporting that UFC 91 pulled in about 800,000 pay-per-view buys, which would put it between UFC 66 (1,050,000 buys) and UFC 61 (775,000 buys) as the second-most-popular UFC PPV card ever. Not quite the 1.2 million that Dana White was predicting, but still an encouraging sign for Brock Lesnar‘s drawing ability as a UFC star. As Bloody Elbow points out, Randy Couture‘s highest buyrate before UFC 91 was 540,000 buys for UFC 68, where he defeated Tim Sylvia after a year-long hiatus.

– Popular lightweight Joe Lauzon will reportedly return at UFC Fight Night 17 (February 7th, Las Vegas) against Hermes Franca. Lauzon is coming off a second-round TKO victory over Kyle Bradley at UFC Fight Night 15, while Franca — a former WEC lightweight champion and UFC #1 contender – is coming off a decision win against Jeremy Horn and Rousimar Palhares has been added to UFC 93 (January 17th; Dublin, Ireland). Horn is coming off back-to-back submission losses to Nate Marquardt and Dean Lister, while Palhares had a five-fight win streak snapped at UFC 88 with a decision loss to Dan Henderson. With the UFC’s layoff trigger-finger as itchy as it is these days, the loser of this one may have to go bye-bye.