Yair Rodriguez has been in the UFC schedule for more than a decade, but there was a time between where the Mexican star was not.
The former UFC -Interim -Fedgegege -was champion signed at the Big Show in 2014 and won his contract on the premiere season of 'The Ultimate Fighter Latin America'.
Yair Rodriguez from Chihuahua won six consecutive fights in the Octagon and at the age of 24 he had already received back-to-back events. The top 10 candidate had a chance for former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar after styling on another Hall of Famer in BJ Penn.
Edgar disturbed Rodriguez's Taekwondo stream with its wrestling and dominated the prospect with soil and pound for a TKO through doctor's stop. This was Rodriguez's very first UFC loss.
A little less than a year later, the name of the KO artist was nowhere to be found in the ranking of the UFC -Fedweight.
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty images
Dana White made 'no sense' for Yair Rodriguez in May 2018
In May 2018, UFC CEO Dana White Yair Rodriguez released the promotion for alleged refusal of fighting with MMA's largest What-as Zabit Magomedsharipov on UFC 227 and Ricardo Lamas.
“The man is out for a year, rejects a battle with Lamas and doesn't want to fight against a man among him in the ranking?” White told La Times in 2018.
“He can go somewhere else. We don't feel like him.
“He calls that [Zabit] Vecht fake news. This is really news, “White said about Rodriguez who tweet '#fakenews' with a report that he is turning off a fight against Magomedsharipov.
Rodriguez was sidelined with injuries after his fight with Frankie Edgar and after a few weeks in the free desk, the Mexican extended things with the UFC buyer and was back on the Roster.
What led to the short UFC room from Yair Rodriguez?
Rodriguez says his side of the story on the MMA hour and says that in the beginning he accepted a fight with Ricardo Lamas before Lamas signed to fight Mirsad Bektic instead. During this time, Rodriguez was open to the will of the Korean Zombie, Josh Emmett, Jeremy Stephens and Frankie Edgar again.
Rodriguez said he asked for more money to fight with Magomedsharipov on UFC 227 because of 'how big an event' it was in Los Angeles.
Rodriguez said that the UFC rejected the Loonbult and even offered to combat Magomedsharipov in his home country of Russia.
“I know the potential of this fight and that is why I asked for more money,” said Rodriguez about his fight with Magomesharipov.
“That was the biggest problem about that. Not because I didn't want to fight, not because I was afraid of anyone … I said no to fight him in LA for the same amount of money.”
When Rodriguez finally returned to the UFC, his first fight back would be Zabit Magomedsharipov on UFC 228.
However, the fight would not take place, while Rodriguez withdrew due to an injury.
Yair Rodriguez currently has a 10-4-1 record in the UFC and in 2023 became the interim champion in the absence of featherweight of Alexander Volkanovski.
'El Pantera' comes from two losses against Brian Ortega and Volkanovski, is ready to welcome the former two-division Bellator champion Patricio Pitbull to the Octagon on UFC 314 this Saturday.