Roger Huerta Becomes A Free Agent

Roger Huerta is now officially a free agent.  Following the final fight on his UFC deal Roger has entered into the period where he is able to negotiate with any promotion while the UFC retains the right to match any offer made.  Sherdog.com was able to catch up with Roger Huerta and Jeff Clark of his management team and get a few statements out of them:

When asked if he and the fighter had started negotiations with the UFC, Strikeforce, and other promotions, Clark answered that, "we’ve had a lot of interest from different parties." Clark would not elaborate further.

...

"I recently saw, actually, that fight with Fedor (Emelianenko) vs. (Brett) Rogers and the show looked amazing," said Huerta, who is 6-2 in the UFC. "The fights looked great. There’s a lot of great fights in that show."

Huerta, who was the first mixed martial artist to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated in 2007, believes he’d fare well in Strikeforce’s 155-pound ranks.

"It would be up to them," said Huerta, "but I’d definitely like to fight a top-caliber fighter like (Shinya) Aoki, (interim champion Gilbert) Melendez, or (champion Josh) Thomson. Obviously, I’d have to earn my stripes in that organization, if I went there, but any of those fights would be amazing."

Obviously as Strikeforce tries to make a name for themselves a marketable and recognizable fighter like Huerta would be a very large boost to their roster.  With the CBS exposure for Strikeforce it is hard to see many situations where the UFC doesn't match any offer from Strikeforce to the lightweight.

Of course, Bellator Fighting Championships remains a very legitimate possibility.  Being a Hispanic-driven promotion they would be getting a very major star that fits into their marketing plans quite well.  It is hard to say with the infrequent schedule of BFC how much the UFC would consider Roger heading there to be a threat.

Regardless of where he ends up it is very likely that a bidding war does very good things for "El Matador's" wallet.