By Guilherme Cruz

Photo UFC

Maiquel Falcao made his UFC debut with a win over previously undefeated Gerald Harris and was set to fight Tom Lawlor at UFC Rio, but he’s no longer a UFC fighter anymore. According to his manager Marcelo Brigadeiro, who sent an open letter to TATAME.com minutes ago, the promotion decided to end his contract due to some legal problems, when he got in a fight at his hometown, in 2002.

“Good night everyone,

We’ve received an e-mail from Joe Silva yesterday saying that the UFC decided to end Maiquel Falcão’s contract. They decided to do that because of some legal problems Maiquel got involved recently.

I decided to communicate you because of the respect we have with Maiquel’s fans. I always worked in a honest and clear way about everything, and wouldn’t act that way in this situation.

This news got us by surprise and let us very shocked, mainly after we signed to fight at UFC Rio. Anyway, we’re very grateful for everything the UFC have done for Maiquel and we believe we go out in a good way.

Besides the sadness, we respect UFC’s decision and hope to return to the biggest event on the planet soon. I think this type of thing happen to make us think about a lot of things, to learn and move on, and you can be sure that Maiquel Falcão will move on.

I’m already in talks with other national and international promotions and you will soon watch Maiquel in action again.

Thanks for all of you that followed and cheered for Falcão at his short career at the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

For more details, visit www.prime-fighters.com.

Marcelo Brigadeiro”