MVN - Most Valuable Network

Kalib Starnes and Travis Lutter should be fired immediately

Before I say what must be said, I need to let you know how much respect I have for any man or woman that competes in mixed-martial arts. Every fighter from the local promotions all the way up through the UFC sacrifice a great deal to become fighters.

That is why I was so sickened by what I saw Saturday night. Kalib Starnes and Travis Lutter should be ashamed of their performances and both should be terminated from their UFC contracts. As a matter of fact, as I write this, Kalib Starnes has been released from his UFC contract. I can only hope that Travis Lutter is next.

Kalib Starnes spent the entire time of his 15-minute fight with Nate Quarry in reverse. Quarry did his best to engage Starnes but did nothing more than chase him around the cage for three rounds. Quarry mocked Starnes to which Starnes responded with a certain finger directed towards Quarry. Quarry won a unanimous decision with scores of 30-26, 30-27 and an embarrassing 30-24. That is 10-8 in each round for those of you bad with math. That is a complete disgrace to every person every to step into a cage or ring to fight. Starnes deserved exactly what he got and I hope he doesn’t ever compete for a MMA organization again.

Travis Lutter should be no less embarrassed and should be fired by the time you finish reading this. What makes Lutter’s situation even worse is that he has a history of issues in the UFC.

After he won The Ultimate Fighter and received a Middleweight Title shot against Anderson Silva, he failed to make weight for the bout. Lutter did give Silva a decent fight but was forced to tap out in the end.

Saturday night, Lutter had a chance at redemption as he faced Rich Franklin. The first round had good back and forth action. Franklin had the upper hand most of the round but Lutter almost finished off Franklin in an arm bar. As both men came out for the second round, Rich Franklin was ready to go but Travis Lutter looked exhausted. His hands were down at his waist and he had no energy. Lutter looked defeated before Franklin even threw a punch. Franklin finished the fight at 3:01 of the second round.

The caliber of athlete in the UFC is second to none. Laziness and fear cannot be tolerated by any fighter; that is how people get seriously injured. I’m happy that UFC President Dana White feels the same way.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Travis Lutter, Nate Quarry, Kalib Starnes, Rich Franklin, Anderson Silva, Pay-Per-View, The Ultimate Fighter, UFC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.