After suffering a somewhat humiliating loss to Dan Henderson, who is better known to fight at middleweight, his third loss in as many fights, Fedor Emelianenko has been let go by the Titanic of MMA Strikeforce.

Naturally, UFC President Dana White handled this news with the circumspection and grace that we have come to know throughout the years. Oh wait, nevermind.

UFC president Dana White on Thursday confirmed his release to MMAWeekly.com.

“Yeah, he’s being cut,” White confirmed. “You guys thought he was the pound-for-pound best in the world, I said he was overrated for years.”

Emelianenko’s legendary undefeated run first came to a halt when he faced Fabricio Werdum last year, and after clipping the Brazilian early in the fight, he was submitted by triangle choke.

Bummer. But wait, there’s more!

According to White, he believes Emelianenko’s contract was up anyway, which paved the way for him not to come back to the promotion.

“Yeah, I think so as far as I know,” White said about Emelianenko’s contract.

White also stated he had no conversations at all with Emelianenko or his camp, and has stayed out of the situation since Zuffa purchased Strikeforce earlier this year.

It would have been cool to have Fedor in UFC during his prime; but his handlers protected him, at least some of the time, from fighting top quality fighters. Fedor went beatless for almost a decade; and has notches in his belt over the likes of of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic. His Pride fights are some of the best stuff you will ever see in MMA. Still, once he started fighting in the U.S. his aura collapsed like he was Kimbo Slice.

If UFC has taught us anything it is that on any given Saturday night you can fall. It’s not all just father time stuff, either, doing boxing exhibitions in half-empty arenas is not top-notch competition and won’t do you any favors during legacy talks. But I guess that doesn’t really bother Fedor; or at least it didn’t when he started doing it. I hope Alistair Overeem is paying attention to this development because he could be facing the same decision. If Overeem wants to do random boxing exhibitions for paydays, then fine; but it could eventually diminish his drawing power. Both fighters are represented by Golden Glory, a promotion that pays their fighters; and shields them from outsiders.

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