The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) champ, six others released by UFC

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is doing some spring cleaning as it gears up for the biggest month of the year (see it), parting ways with seven fighters including The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 8 champ Efrain Escudero. "Hecho en Mexico" is 25-11 overall and coming off back-to-back losses to Leandro Silva and Kevin Lee.

Also getting ZUFFA pink slips, according to Sherdog.com, were Robert Whiteford, Clint Hester, Willie Gates, Dominic Waters, Yan Cabral, and Filip Pejic. Whiteford (12-4) went 2-3 as a UFC fighter, while Hester (11-6) dropped three straight, all of them finishes.

Gates (12-7) managed just one win in four trips to the cage, which is one better than Waters (9-5), who went three and out. Cabral (12-3) was perfect as a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter until he joined UFC and Pejic (10-2-1) had just one appearance for ZUFFA, a submission loss to Damian Stasiak last April.

No doubt most -- if not all -- will get second leases on their combat sports lives later this year, as the regional and international MMA scene, comprised of Bellator MMA, World Series of Fighting (WSOF), Combate Americas, and ONE Championship, among others, continues to boom.