At this point, it’s just salt in the wound for Gilbert Melendez’s UFC career. The former Strikeforce champion came to the Octagon with high expectations, that he would be a major player among the promotion’s lightweight elite.
And while he battled for the lightweight title twice, losing controversially to Benson Henderson in his debut – and not at all controversially to Anthony Pettis a little more than a year later – the rest of his time with the UFC was marred by a 2015 failed drug test and injury troubles. He was officially released from his UFC contract in late 2019, having won just one bout over six years and seven fights.