by Alex Mattis
And this time he didn’t even say goodbye!
Following his decision loss to Demian Maia at UFC 136, Jorge Santiago has yet again been split from the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Honestly, this wasn’t much of a surprise but still a tough break for the former Sengoku champion.
The Sandman’s initial run in the UFC didn’t go so scorching and concluded with brutal back-to-back knockout losses to Chris Leben and Alan Belcher. Following the defeats, Santiago took Japan by storm and racked up an 11-1 record in MMA competition. Along the way he won the Strikeforce Middleweight Grand Prix and the Sengoku Middleweight championship, and last August defeated Kazuo Misaki at Sengoku Raiden Championships 14 in a bout many awarded “Fight of the Year.”
Upon his return to UFC this past May, Santiago was paired with fast-rising middleweight, Brian Stann. While he was rewarded with a “Fight of the Night” bonus, Santiago had to eat a barrage of KO strikes from Stann to get there. From there, “The Sandman” dropped an aforementioned decision to Demian Maia earlier this month in Houston. While the bout was quite technical and often evenhanded, Maia proved to have a clear edge.
A week later, Jorge Santiago was unemployed.
Santiago is the latest in a long line of successful JMMA competitors to come to the UFC and not find the triumph expected. Jorge joins the likes of Takanori Gomi, Yoshihiro Akiyama, and Denis Kang in the “Plans That Went Awry” file. If anything, this may show that having a wealth of experience and success prior to a UFC debut can sometimes be a detriment.
A trip back to JMMA isn’t as easy as it was following Santiago’s first release. The scene is a’ dwindling in Japan. A Strikeforce return is even less likely now that it has defected to the Zuffa Kingdom. Fortunately, Bellator and BAMMA pose some new options for the former champ. The kid’s bounced back before; let’s see if he can do it again.
