Luke Rockhold believes the UFC is “losing it”, is considering leaving promotion

It has been known for some time that UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping will next defend his title against former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. With St-Pierre now saying he won’t be able to take this lucrative title fight until October or later, however, the many contenders in the stacked middleweight division are getting quite frustrated – perhaps none more so than former champ Luke Rockhold.

Rockhold vented on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour:

“Our division is hot right now, they’ve got good matchups, but they’re just not putting the champion to work,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. Are they really going to wait until October to make the Georges St-Pierre fight?” 

“The company is kind of losing it these days,” he continued. “I don’t know what happened to the old company where the best fought the best. That’s what built this company, now it’s just a spectator sport. They’re just putting freak shows together.” 

“At least put an interim title on the line if [the champion’s] not gonna fight. He’s going to be inactive and not fight one contender in two years? What’s the point in being the champion?” 

With no clear path back to the title, and an ever increasing focus on money fights rather than legitimate title fights, Rockhold is now considering leaving the UFC to fight in another promotion.

“There’s no path to anything,” he said. “What’s the fucking point? There’s no point in staying in this division, or this company. If it’s just money fights, I’ll do that somewhere else. Fuck, I mean, you can let me go from my contract and I’ll go fight big money fights somewhere else. I’m here in this company to fight the best guys in the world and to win titles. If there’s no path to that, I’m out. Let me go.” 

“There’s money to be made outside this company too.”

Do you think Luke Rockhold is right? Is the UFC losing its way?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/8/2017.