The Ultimate Fighting Championship has fired bantamweight star Miguel Torres for comments he made on Twitter Thursday.
Torres posted an insensitive joke about sexual assault that was in reference to a line from an episode of the FX sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
When UFC president Dana White was told what Torres had tweeted, he was taken aback.
“Miguel Torres has been cut from the UFC, and his career with us now is over,” White told SI.com in an interview Thursday.
On Wednesday at a press conference to promote the upcoming UFC on Fox 2 event in Chicago, former UFC light-heavyweight champion Rashad Evans made an inappropriate comment about Jerry Sandusky and the recent Penn State sexual abuse scandal. The UFC and White did not punish Evans for what he said.
In the summer, TUF 1 winner Forrest Griffin posted a satirical statement about sexual assault that upset many fans. Griffin removed the tweet and he was not disciplined by the UFC.
White, who is no stronger to using colourful language in a public forum, has stated in the past that he doesn’t control what his fighters say.
The UFC announced a new Twitter bonus program earlier this year to encourage its fighters to use social media. White has supported the use of social media for several years. The UFC president currently has over 1.7 million Twitter followers.
Torres (40-4) went 2-1 in the UFC after coming over from the now-defunct World Extreme Cagefighting promotion. The former WEC bantamweight champion was once considered one of the pound-for-pound best fighters in the world.
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