Mike Chiappetta • E-mail

Former No. 1 welterweight contender Jon Fitch was surprisingly cut from the UFC, along with American Kickboxing Academy teammate Christian Wellisch.

Fitch told Yahoo! Sports that the cut stemmed from his reluctance to sign a lifetime contract that would give the UFC his likeness rights in perpetuity in connection with an upcoming videogame.

UFC President Dana White, meanwhile, went into no specifics. Speaking with 1140 KHTK Sacramento, White said, "No, no, no. It has nothing to do with an agreement. It has nothing to do with Jon Fitch, either. I like Jon Fitch. I've never had a bad word with Jon Fitch. The problem is the idiots that run AKA. I'm not using any names, but the idiots know who they are. The economy is changing by the second all over the world. TV networks are in trouble. Sponsors are in trouble. Some are going out of business, the rest are cutting sponsorships bigtime. Companies that have been in business 100 years are going under."

Just a few days ago, Fitch was still on the UFC radar after rumors suggested he had agreed to fight Akihiro Gono on the undercard of Jan. 31's Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn card.

In the past, Fitch has been held up by White as an example of what was good about the sport for his willingness to fight anyone, anywhere. He holds a 19-3 lifetime record and an 8-1 mark in the UFC.

In his last fight, the 30-year-old Fitch lost a spirited five-round decision to current champion Georges St. Pierre in the main event of UFC 87. The loss snapped a run of eight straight UFC wins, which ties him for longest-winning streak in the octagon with legend Royce Gracie and current middleweight champ Anderson Silva.

For his efforts, White said Fitch made $169,000.

"Where else is he going to make that kind of money in one night?" White asked about Fitch, who is still currently ranked as one of the top five 170-pounders in the world by most polls.

Fitch voiced a displeasure with the lifetime rights issue, but White took umbrage, saying, "Here's a better question for you. Jon Fitch goes off and becomes a huge superstar in another league somewhere else... Do you think we're going to keep him in the video game? Do you really think we're going to keep him in the game? It's common sense. People are so stupid sometimes it hurts my brain."

White said the problem extends to every AKA fighter, including star welterweight Josh Koscheck and rising heavyweight contender Cain Velasquez. The only exception was Mike Swick, who personally called the UFC President to say he wanted to stay with the company whatever it takes.

But that could mean the end for Koscheck, who took a fight with Thiago Alves on short notice on Oct. 25, and will also fight in the main event of a Dec. 10 UFC show against Yushiyuki Yoshida.

According to SpikeTV spokesman David Schwarz, both Koscheck and Swick are expected to remain on that card.

According to a source that has worked with THQ in the past, coding the upcoming game would require finalizing the roster around six months in advance. With the release date scheduled for May 24, the current trouble falls into the timeframe.

In other instances, the company can make a deal with a centralized body, whether a player union or company for an athlete's rights, but in the case of UFC fighters, they also had to deal with different management groups, leading to some difficulty.

Other pro athletes have had similar issues with licensing. In 1992, Michael Jordan backed out of the NBA's group licensing agreement to reach his own personal agreement with the league. In 2003, Barry Bonds refused to sign MLB's group licensing agreement, also going out on his own.

Still, White says that the issue isn't personal, and that he only wished the fighters and their managers could see all the work the company has put in to get them to this point.

"It's all the guys in AKA, period. But it has nothing to do with those fighters personally, it's those idiots that run it."