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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
After he was released from the UFC earlier this year due to his second failed drug test for marijuana in three fights, Matt Riddle signed on with Legacy Fighting Championships. However, before stepping foot in their cage, he's now headed elsewhere.
It was reported on Friday's "Inside MMA" program on AXS TV that Riddle is now heading to Bellator MMA, with MMAJunkie.com following up with a report stating his Legacy FC contract had been bought out by the organization.
The 27-year-old Riddle would be on a four fight winning streak were it not for those failed drug tests, which turned those two bouts to "no contests". Whenever he debuts in Bellator, it will mark his first professional fight ever outside of the UFC.
Riddle entered the organization in 2008 through the seventh season of The Ultimate Fighter. He entered the show, along with eventual winner Amir Sadollah, with no professional fight experience, and went on to post a successful mark through 12 fights in the UFC. In that time, he suffered just three losses, the last of which came in 2011.
Penick's Analysis: There are a few things that are amusing about this move. One is that Riddle is a decidedly lower profile and less skilled welterweight than the also recently released Jon Fitch, and Bellator had no desire to go after him. Another is that the signing comes just days after Welterweight Champ Ben Askren publicly commented on how he'd only been drug tested once in the organization. That's just amusing. But Riddle commands a decidedly lower price than Fitch, and without the drug test failures has won four straight, so it makes sense he'd be a more appealing signing. That said, I don't know how he gets through a full tournament without failing a drug test for marijuana, because it stays in your system and he'd be fighting more frequently in the tournament format.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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