Report: UFC Canada layoffs include GM Tom Wright

The UFC axe has made its way up north.

Following a flurry of layoffs on Tuesday, MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani reports that the promotion's Canadian branch followed suit Wednesday by cutting approximately 80 percent of its staff. That includes Tom Wright, the UFC executive vice president and general manager for operations in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Working with the UFC since 2010, Wright played a key role in legalizing MMA in Toronto. Those efforts opened the door for UFC 129, which took place in the cavernous Rogers Centre. The event had a reported 55,724 in attendance and a $12-million gate, both North American records for an MMA show.

UFC 129 was the most highly attended show in company history until UFC 193 packed 56,214 into the Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia last November. Wright helped to lift the cage ban in Victoria, which led to the Octagon's arrival in the state capital.

The UFC's office in Asia and its headquarters in Las Vegas were also hit hard by the company-wide downsizing.

These layoffs come as little surprise following the recent sale of the UFC to WME-IMG in August. The new owners purchased the promotion for a reported $4 billion, and as is standard with corporate takeovers, there were bound to be redundancies.

The moves appear to signal a shift away from the UFC's plans for international expansion, though the extent of that change won't be known until they begin to schedule events for 2017.

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