UFC QUOTABLES: Dana White - "These are the big leagues... you perform or you go away"

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

"It's a dog-eat-dog world, there's so many good guys out there, you're literally fighting for your UFC life every time you fight... It's no different than any other professional sports organization, it's exactly the way it works. You want to stay at the top of the food chain, you deal with it. If you don't, you won't. You know how many guys get cut by the NFL and Major League Baseball every day? It's crazy, staggering. Same thing here, no difference... Listen, these are the big leagues, no different than Major League Baseball, no different than the NFL, you perform or you go away."

-Dana White talks about the dynamic in the UFC with more fighters joining the roster and how fighters need to perform to keep their jobs. (Quotes transcribed by MMAFighting.com).

Penick's Analysis: When news of the merger with the WEC came down, one of the immediate realizations was that a lot of fighters were going to be losing their spot on the roster. With seven divisions instead of five, the bottom end of the five divisions the UFC was filling their cards out with before are going to be hit the worst. And the UFC has already sent a message about performance with the cutting of Gerald Harris this week. But this is what fighters need to be prepared for and know ahead of time when entering the UFC. Performing well is going to give them opportunities, and performing poorly will give them a one way ticket out. It might be a cruel reality, but reality is exactly what it is for the fighters under contract.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_7628.shtml

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