Yoel Romero discusses 'completely unexpected' release

Former UFC middleweight title challenger Yoel Romero was released by the UFC earlier this month, and has signed a multi-fight contract with Bellator MMA, and will debut early next year in their stacked light heavyweight division. During a recent appearance on ESPN’s The Ariel Helwani MMA Show, Yoel talked about it, via a translator. “Soldier of God” said he wasn’t released due to losing four of his last five fights.

Romero was ranked #5 in the middleweight division, and coming off a title shot decision loss to emerging superstar Israel Adesanya. Three of the four losses were in title fights, and two of the three were controversial. The sole loss that was not in a title fight won Fight of the Night. Romero told Helwani that the release was over matchmaking disagreements.

First and foremost, it was something that was completely unexpected, said Romero. I was already training very hard, getting ready. We were already thinking of fighting in January or February at 185 or 205. We were looking to fight with the top three in either division. My managers explained this to the presidency, the top of the UFC.

They wanted to fight with Uriah Hall, Derek Brunson, and we explained to them that it didn’t make sense to fight with these young men. We had an idea we were chasing, the world title. The way we were training, making it happen, we knew that we had one or two fights and then we would go for the belt. Our thought was that fighting any of these guys that are in the back of the roster, that it was taking steps backward, not forward.

My managers were back and forth non-stop with the matchmakers and with [UFC president Dana White], and there was no accordance. They came back to us with an offer to fight Johnny Walker at 205. At 205, we wanted whomever triumphed between ‘Marreta’ or Glover [Teixeira].

The managers were initially saying we wanted to fight with Dominick Reyes, Glover Teixeira, ‘Marreta,’ or Anthony Smith, and it was kind of like a back and forth, kind of quiet on their end, and once they reached back it was to let [me] know that we couldn’t come to an agreement, and they were going to commit to the release.

I would have never expected this. I was training not extra hard, but training with an intensity that I was going to run through my next two fights, get another shot at Izzy, and once I was in there, I was going to take his head off.