(If there was ever an image that summed up Garcia’s UFC experience, this is it.) 

You know, we may have had our fun at Leonard Garcia‘s expense over the years, but when it was passed along that his fighter profile had finally, mercifully been removed from UFC.com’s master list this morning, we were filled with an unexpected sense of dread — the ending of Old Yeller comes to mind.

While it’s true that you could easily fault Garcia for being entertaining to his own detriment (not unlike Chris Lytle, although “Lights Out” did manage to break the .500 mark by the end of his UFC career), it would hard to blame the man himself for being gifted a few decisions or overstaying his welcome in the UFC; Garcia simply showed up when told, always made weight, and put on as entertaining a fight as humanly possible. That’s more than most past or present UFC employees can say, and the fact that Leonard managed to do all this without once testing positive for a banned substance or steroids* should only improve his much grumbled about reputation in the organization.

Unfortunately, Garcia’s 2-7 record in the promotion did little to raise said reputation, hence the removal of his profile — along with the profiles of a few other fighters that we’ll get to in a second — from UFC.com. Dana White had mentioned that Garcia’s UFC future was “not looking good” following his fifth straight loss to Cody McKenzie at UFC 159 last month, so it was only a matter of time before this news broke. With the loss, Garcia joins such company as Steve Cantwell, Elvis Sinosic, and John Alessio as the only UFC fighters to suffer five straight losses in the UFC.

Best of luck, Leonard. Hopefully you can get a couple confidence-boosting wins on the local circuit and work your way back up to the top, because the UFC could always use another fighter who puts the fans before him/herself.

As we mentioned, Garcia’s profile was only one of many to be removed from UFC.com earlier today, so join us after the jump to check out the full list of vitims.

(Good enough to beat up a former title contender. Not quite good enough to remain employed six months later. / Photo via Getty Images)

After losing to Diego Brandao by first-round arm-triangle choke at UFC on FUEL 9 last month, UFC featherweight Pablo Garza has been released by the UFC. Garza confirmed the bad news yesterday, saying that he will focus on coaching and competing in jiu-jitsu for the time being, although he didn’t rule out a return to MMA competition.

Though Garza kicked off his pro career with seven consecutive wins, he endured a couple of setbacks before making it into the UFC. First, he was selected for the TUF 11 lightweight cast, but lost a decision to Michael Johnson in the elimination round before making it into the house. After winning a couple more fights in his native North Dakota, Garza was brought back to the Zuffa fold as a featherweight injury replacement for Jason Reinhardt at WEC 51, and was quickly guillotine choked by Tiequan Zhang.

But the UFC gave him another chance, bringing him into the big leagues after the WEC closed its doors. Garza went on to score back-to-back wins over Fredson Paixao (via Knockout of the Night-earning flying knee) and Yves Jabouin (via Submission of the Night-earning flying triangle). A pair of losses to Dustin Poirier and Dennis Bermudez followed, putting the Scarecrow on thin ice again. But Garza redeemed himself by dominating Mark Hominick in a gritty decision at UFC 154 last November.

The April loss to Brandao sunk Garza’s UFC record to an even 3-3 — not the most impressive tally, but then again, all of Garza’s wins were pretty damn fantastic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep him on the roster. Bummer. In other firing news…

(1-0 over constrictive tanktops, 0-1 over actual competition. You will be missed, Gilbert. Photo courtesy of UFC.com) 

The UFC continues to steamroll ahead with its massive roster cuts, Potato Nation. And while we are never one to praise the departure of a Zuffa employee (unless it’s Paul Daley, of course), we should at least be able to take comfort in the fact that there are no Jon Fitch level mind-bogglers for us to mourn this time around. However, the UFC’s most recent list of firings does feature — somewhat unsurprisingly — every TUF 17 alum who came up short in the season’s finale earlier this month, as well as a couple other guys who have had less than successful UFC runs as of late.

Taking out the trash is never fun, so let’s just get this thing over with…

(Wow! Booster seats and sporks at McDonalds looked really weird back in the old days. Photo via idahogirlinalaska)

By Nathan Smith and Josh Hutchinson

Being a “contributor” for CagePotato.com is kind of like being a barback at a seedy nightclub in Tijuana. We stock the bar with booze, ice, and clean glassware while staying in the shadows hoping to God that we don’t get yelled at. We try to help out wherever we can so the star bartenders (Ben Goldstein, Jared Jones, Elias Cepeda and Seth Falvo) can toss bottles of shitty Tequila like juggling pins while they pour fruit-flavored cocktails to semi hot chicks that they will inevitably hump later on. A contributor cleans up puke, empties ashtrays and eats shit from all the “made men” (both writers and tenured comment section dick-heads) here at CagePotato but it really is a great gig. Can you imagine the sloppy seconds that Danga sends our way?

Needless to say, most of the day-to-day MMA related news topics are taken care of by the staff writers and that leaves aspiring dipshits like me and Hutchinson to try and come up with a fresh or entertaining story idea on our own. Well, this idea is not fresh but it could be entertaining (at least my portions will be, but I have hope for Hutch since he is the guy who brought the word “dicknailed” to the CP). When Jon Fitch was released from his UFC contract last week, I wanted to write a piece on which higher profile fighters I would cut next if I were part of the UFC brass. Because opinions are like buttholes, Hutch had a thought to debate several of the choices in a YAY or NAY style. Before anyone starts hollering about Clay Guida, Jake Shields or the entire cast from the first season of The Ultimate Fighter (that means you Koscheck) take note that we agreed on more than we disagreed and in the spirit of pointless arguments opted to leave the most obvious offenders out. Let’s get started.

FRANK MIR – last disclosed salary: $200,000

(Photo via MMAWeekly)

(You think it would be damn near impossible to sum up an 18-fight UFC career in one image, yet here we are.) 

Wow.

When we announced just hours ago that Jacob Volkmann had been cut from the UFC as part of a vast, government-led ploy to disarm the public following a 1-2 run in his last 3 fights, little did we know that his termination was just the precursor for one of the largest mass firings in UFC history. But that appears to be the case, as it was recently made public that Volkmann was but one of 16 fighters to be cut from the UFC today.

Among the dead are a few guys you probably wont recognize (C.J. Keith, Motonobu Tezuka (?), Simeon Thoresen), a few guys who probably had it coming (Vladimir Matyushenko, Mike Russow, Mike Stumpf) and a couple of guys who couldn’t find a win in the UFC if they sold their souls to Dana White Satan (the continuously underwhelming Jorge Santiago and poor, poor Jay Hieron).

However, if you were to continue looking over said list, you would find a couple inclusions that would not only make you scratch your head, but possibly shave your head, eyebrows, body hair, and nipples off in a hallucinogenic stupor. After the jump, we’ve compiled our own list of the most shocking entries.

(Griggs might not have had the best ground game in the biz, but he made up for it in pure funkatude.) 

It must be spring, Potato Nation, because in order to make room for their new batch of Strikeforce fighters, the UFC has been doing a little cleaning out of their roster as of late. In total, 9 fighters have been axed as of this morning, including everyone’s favorite muttonchops aficionado, Chad Griggs. MMA Opinion has the full list, so join us after the jump to find out which fighters will no longer be punctuating the undercards of FUEL and FX events.

Chad Griggs: 11-1 before entering the UFC, Griggs’ lack of a ground game was quickly exposed in his debut, where he was choked out by Travis Browne in under three minutes at UFC 145. After dropping to light heavyweight, Griggs returned at UFC 154 to face PRIDE veteran and feared striker Cyrille Diabate. Those who were expecting a slugfest left disappointed, however, as Griggs was choked out in the first round again, just 15 seconds later than his first fight.

Marcus LeVesseur: Despite being one of the more decorated wrestlers to enter the UFC in some time, “The Prospect” quickly showed that he was simply not well rounded enough to hang in the sport’s highest promotion. After dominating the beginning of his UFC debut against TUF 12 alum Cody McKenzie, LeVesseur became McKenzietine victim #11 at just over three minutes into the first round. After scoring a snoozer of split decision over Carlo Prater in his next fight, Levesseur was absolutely savaged by Abel Trujillo at UFC on FOX: Henderson vs. Diaz.

(The punch may have missed, but Dillishaw’s stank bref definitely found its mark.) 

It is not a good time of year to be a struggling UFC fighter, Potato Nation.

Just a day after it was made public that Charlie “Big Hair” Brenneman (nickname pending) had been released from the UFC following a pair of losses to Kyle Noke and Erick Silva, the UFC has announced that four more UFC fighters will have to significantly cut back on their children’s wish lists this Christmas. Spoiler alert: Most of the names will not surprise you, unless you were unaware that some of them were fighting in the UFC in the first place, or even a person at all, which is likely the case with a couple of these guys.

And the nominees for saddest fighter of the day are…

-Michihiro Omigawa: Following an 0-2 stint in the octagon between 2007-2008, the DREAM and DEEP veteran reentered the UFC in February of 2011. Unfortunately for him, his second run didn’t go much better than the first. He would drop his first fight to future title challenger Chad Mendes by way of unanimous decision at UFC 126 and get absolutely screwjobbed out of a victory in his second fight against Darren Elkins at UFC 131. A UD victory of his own over Jason Young at UFC 138 would be his first and his last under the Zuffa banner, as he would suffer back-to-back unanimous decision losses to Iuri Alcantara and former WEC featherweight title challenger Manny Gamburyen at UFC 142 and UFC on FOX 4, respectively. Omigawa’s record currently stands at 13-12.

Brittney: if you’re thinking of hurting yourself, call us. We insist.

We didn’t really think much of it when a rumor started going around that Brittney Palmer was on her way out of the UFC.  There were some vague Twitter messages of bad luck, and Dana gave her some flack over screwing up which network was broadcasting UFC Live, but surely he wouldn’t just toss her, right?

Well, kids, no official announcement has been made, but we don’t really expect one either.  Brittney Palmer is no longer listed as an Octagon Girl.  If it turns out that Anonymous did this, we’ll never forgive them.  Until then, we’ll mourn for our favorite Octagon Girl (except Ben;  he’ll never get over Arianny).

We wish Ms Palmer well in her future, which is suddenly more open for her to concentrate more on her art interests. Come on inside for one more collection of Brittney’s greatest hits, and leave your tearful comments.

Thanks to Tracy Lee/Combat Lifestyle, Omar Gomez Photography, Fighters Only magazine, and any other photographers who we will identify later when they send us a salty email.

** UPDATE ** Brittney’s portrait has mysteriously reappeared on the UFC site, so take from that what you will. No official word about her employment status has been had, but if we see her at the next show, we’ll call it a win. (They still haven’t fixed Chandella’s age, though.)

[RX]

(A week later, that thing hatched and about 30 baby spiders came pouring out. True story.)

When it comes to getting fired by the UFC, three is a magic number — as in, that’s usually the number of consecutive losses you’re allowed before they tell you to hit the bricks. Case in point, welterweight contender John “Doomsday” Howard, who was just released from his contract after seven fights in the promotion.

Howard began his UFC campaign in promising fashion, picking up split-decision wins over Chris Wilson and Tamdan McCrory, followed by knockouts of Dennis Hallman and Daniel Roberts. Then, shit fell apart. Howard got dominated by Jake Ellenberger en route to a doctor’s stoppage TKO (due to the gnarly swelling of his left eye), then caught decision losses against Thiago Alves and Matt Brown. The loss to Brown was unforgivable, considering Brown was on a three-fight skid himself.