American mixed martial artist Steve Carl is now back in the news. The former WSOF Welterweight Champion is now a free agent. Carl's contract was terminated on Wednesday as the end result of a prolonged and controversial layoff which stretched nearly eight months following his March loss to Rousimar Palhares at WSOF 9.
Carl was open about his criticism with WSOF with its incapability, or rather reluctance to book him a fight. The issue climaxed when Carl sent out a barrage of tweet describing the promotions as "unprofessional" and saying that WSOF believed that "being a pro fighter should only be a part time gig."
Carl said "This s**t was ridiculous, and it's pathetic I have to go through this."
Adding "I've been trying to not be that guy, not to try to start drama or anything. But it kinda seems like nothing gets done unless you go to Twitter and start bitching. People start picking up on it, and then all of a sudden the company wants to start doing something."
Carl said that his camp was able to terminate his contract on an inactivity clause. This means that the promotion will release him if they won't be able to book him a fight.
Carl last fought on Mar. 29 after which he was sidelined on an injury. After receiving medical clearance, he requested for a fight which was mostly denied, rejected or ignored.
He said "When I began asking for a fight in August, I was asking for a fight at 185 or 170 because I knew they didn't have enough 170-pounders. o I said I'll fight anybody, any weight class, just keep me relevant, get me a fight, get me paid. And I asked for months just like that and got nothing."
"After not being able to get ahold of them for a long time, me and my management decided to go ahead and request my release due to my inactivity clause, and that was October 20. And immediately they tried defending themselves, basically saying I couldn't go, this, that, and another. Once we settled that they were in the wrong, due to my contract, they have 15 days to fix the situation. So I mean, all they had to do was give me a fight. Maybe a little bit of money, but give me a fight is the biggest thing, and it didn't happen. They went right back to just ignoring the calls and the texts. Today (Wednesday) was day 15, so we decided to go ahead and terminate the contract."
