Once in a blue moon a fighter arises from nowhere who really catches the eye of the MMA community. The cliché of the hype train is a term that best describes this. On occasion, they are very accurate and warranted - see Jon Jones, Lyoto Machida etc. Sometimes fans like to claim that they saw fighters rise from obscurity to stardom, and the gargantuan rise of the aforementioned Jon Jones is hard to put into words; from a middle of the card scrap to short notice title fight in little over a month. Jones won the light heavyweight belt with an impressive victory against Shogun Rua, going on to defend his belt 5 times and clinching a Nike sponsorship deal in the process. Hype well and truly granted. However, this article will look at those occasions when a fighter has a heap of potential and hype but has not been able to deliver. I have decided not to consider those who have been forced to retire due to injury (David Terrell), been victim to painkiller addiction (Mark Kerr & Karo Parisyan) or been the mastermind of a £53million robbery (Lee Murray).
10. Roger Huerta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdudn1umr4E The fall of Roger Huerta is a rather odd one. At one stage, El Matador compiled a tremendously impressive record of 20-1-1 (1) with a come-from-behind victory against Clay Guida in his last outing. However this is where it all went wrong. Huerta was then matched up against top lightweight Kenny Florian, losing via unanimous decision and announced his hiatus from MMA to focus on his acting. 13 months later he returned to the cage in a highly competitive affair with future title hopeful Gray Maynard, once again losing via decision - though this time the judges were split (28-29, 30-27, 30-27). The close bout with Maynard proved to be his last in the UFC. Huerta then announced on Twitter that he was in talks with Strikeforce, though went on to sign with Bellator. Winning his lightweight tournament quarter final in a complete mismatch, Huerta went on to face top contender Pat Curran. Roger was on the other end of a controversial decision which many scored for Huerta, but in his next match-up the American was simply outclassed. Coming up against Eddie Alvarez, El Matador was outmatched everywhere ultimately losing the fight via doctor's stoppage coming into the third. This poor display was Huerta's last for Bellator, and he was left needing to rejuvenate somehow. Roger opted to fight for independent promotions in an attempt to notch up a string of wins and work his way back to the UFC. This is not an unfamiliar feat for ex-UFC fighters, many have been able to revive their careers by going elsewhere and have come back far stronger - Tim Boetsch, Dennis Siver et al. Unfortunately for the American-Mexican, the plan was not as easy as he had hoped. In a welterweight affair, Roger faced War Machine (yes, that really is the guy's name, and yes he is a part-time pornstar too), breaking a rib and losing via TKO in the process. You may think that is the end of this sorry tale, but it isn't. After the War Machine loss, Roger decided to stay at Welterweight and fight for Japanese promotion One FC against obscure Brazilian Zorobabel Moreira. Not only was Moreira a short notice opponent, but on paper he was heavily outmatched by a guy with fights in both the UFC and Bellator. Despite this, Moreira won via brutal soccer kick KO and settled it once and for all - Huerta will never make it back to the big leagues.