http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/mma_experts/post/UFC-cuts-Starnes-after-disgraceful-performance?urn=mma,78124


Monday, Apr 21, 2008 2:20 pm EDT
[b]UFC cuts Starnes after disgraceful performance[/b]



By Kevin Iole


It was a great night for mixed martial arts on Saturday in Montreal, as an enthusiastic sellout crowd of 21,390 packed the Bell Centre to watch hometown hero Georges St. Pierre reclaim the UFC welterweight title from Matt Serra at UFC 83.

It wasn't such a good night, though, for Kalib Starnes, who spent most of the evening running from Nate Quarry in their middleweight bout. A native of Surrey, B.C., Starnes was booed heavily by the Canadian crowd that had been boisterous in its support of all the other Canadians on the card.

After losing a unanimous decision on scores of 30-26, 30-27, & an unheard-of 30-24, Starnes received even worse news: He was cut from his contract by UFC president Dana White.

"He just doesn’t belong in the UFC & after his performance the other night, he should consider a new line of work," White said Monday.

Quarry pressed the action the entire fight as Starnes simply circled & refused to engage. Late in the third round, Quarry pretended to run like he was a track star in trying to find a way to get Starnes to fight.

After the bout, members of Quarry's corner were complaining to Starnes about his lack of activity. Starnes shouted an expletive at one member of Quarry's team, called him a derogatory term for homosexuals & challenged him to a fight.

Starnes couldn't be reached for comment about his performance, but Quarry expressed disappointment with Starnes' lack of effort.

A one-time contestant on The Ultimate Fighter, Starnes was 8-2 going into the bout & had had quality victories over Chris Leben & Jason MacDonald.

"I think if you're fighting in the UFC, you've got to come to fight," Quarry told UFC.com in a post-fight interview. "I would much rather get knocked out than lose a decision running backwards. No disrespect to Kalib. I know the stress really gets to you. A lot of guys, they focus on not wanting to lose instead of wanting to win. I didn't mean to disrespect him in any way. I just got frustrated because you can't fight when somebody's moving backward that fast."

Suprized?

he is protesting I hear

Fuck starnes, maybe if he wasnt running like a little girl the entire time. We could of seen a better fight than that, had to pay for that shit, that was horrible

Agree with Artard. That was one of the most retarded fights I've ever seen. Atleast we got some good laughed at Nate's antics while chasing him.

My foots broken, yea OK. Try to find excuses. If your foot was broken you wouldnt have been running that fast

Apparently

- Both fighters he beat ( Leben & Macdonald ) got paid a lot more than him for the fights , that might have been fair at the time considering there standings at the time but you would expect him to get paid an amount at least equal to what they were gettin in their fights with him when he was fighting Quarry, apparently he wasn't & he was still on a very low pay .

- As well as this the UFC wern't going to give him the health insurance he was wanting , he was being told he could only get some cheap Canadian health care

Fair to say if your a fighter you wouldn't be happy at all with this & apparently this is the reason he ran away, as a protest.

Also i'm pretty sure this was the last fight on his contract & he felt he was going to be dropped anyway so he decided due to the shitty circumstances he would run away the whole fight ,this way he could tip off all his friends to lay down big bets on Quarry & that way hes going to get more money than he would have for actually winning the fight.

If he doesnt like his pay than he needs to put on a good performance to make him worth more money. Also his manager should be handling that, if he has a good manager he should be able to negotiate with the UFC to get him a better pay day.