5 UFC prospects who turned out to be busts

#3 Todd Duffee

Todd Duffee's career has been curtailed by injuries

Initially fighting out of American Top Team, Todd Duffee had made some early noise in late 2008 when he destroyed former UFC title contender Assuerio Silva in his native Brazil. That noise became deafening upon his UFC debut in August 2009 – he broke the record for the UFC’s fastest knockout by switching Tim Hague’s lights off in just 7 seconds at UFC 102.

The expectation was that the UFC had an instant contender for the Heavyweight title – Duffee was huge - 6’3” and 240lbs of solid muscle – clearly hit like a truck, and the word was that his ground game was excellent too. His second fight saw him paired with Mike Russow, and after hitting the tough Russow with his best shots for three rounds, he was caught with a lucky punch and knocked out – one of the most shocking endings in UFC history.

Duffee was expected to bounce back quickly, only to see his UFC career suddenly ended – released due to supposed “attitude problems”. He went on to lose to Alistair Overeem (no shame there) and then knocked out Neil Grove before being brought back, but the issue was his injury record – due to his time on the shelf, he was averaging just one fight per year.

Duffee knocked out Phil de Fries in his return to the UFC in December 2012, but it took him a year to return again with another knockout, this time of Anthony Hamilton. A big fight with Frank Mir was then set up – albeit seven months later – but Mir knocked him out and he hasn’t been seen since. That was two and a half years ago.

Basically, the problem with Duffee hasn’t been a lack of skill, but a penchant for picking up nasty and persistent injuries – the worst being a nerve problem called Parsonage-Turner syndrome. He might yet live up to his potential but at 31 with just three UFC fights in the last five years, he seems more likely to be labelled as a bust.