Anyone thinking Bellator MMA is the cushion for free-falling fighters better think again.

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight number one contender, Jon Fitch, was unceremoniously relieved of his duties earlier this week after promotion president Dana White decided it was time to trim the fat from his roster.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney quickly informed The MMA Report that Fitch is not welcome on Spike TV:

"I have a lot of respect for Jon [Fitch] and I have a lot of respect for anyone who has to courage to do what these guys do and the athletic ability to do what they do but we are not going to be signing Jon Fitch. We have a stacked welterweight division right now. We have a lot of guys that we are developing that we anticipate are going to be world class fighters and break the top ten. We want to keep guys busy. We want to keep guys inside the cage and we have a plan in terms of the next year and who is going to be apart of the tournaments and it's just not the time."

The acquisition of Strikeforce sure seemed like a good thing at the time ...

Now Fitch has nowhere to call home. Other stateside promotions exists, like World Series of Fighting (WSOF), but as we quickly learned from the Quinton Jackson situation, not many promoters can afford a UFC price tag, so the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) standout may have to fight for smaller purses at greater frequency.

Overseas, perhaps? I hear ONE FC is doing big things in Asia...