After the UFC cut former welterweight title challenger Jon Fitch on Tuesday, it seemed academic that he’d be heading to the number two MMA promotion in North America, Bellator.

However, according to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, that will not be the case. He said as much in an interview with The MMA Report on Thursday.

"I have a lot of respect for Jon [Fitch] and I have a lot of respect for anyone who has to courage to do what these guys do and the athletic ability to do what they do but we are not going to be signing Jon Fitch,” Rebney said.

“We have a stacked welterweight division right now. We have a lot of guys that we are developing that we anticipate are going to be world class fighters and break the top ten ... We want to keep guys inside the cage and we have a plan in terms of the next year and who is going to be apart of the tournaments and it's just not the time."

Fitch complied an impressive 14-3-1 inside the Octagon during his seven years with the company, but his recent 1-2-1 stretch apparently wasn’t good enough to remain on the roster.

Shockingly, Fitch was ranked number 9 in the UFC’s official top 10 welterweight rankings, which were released on Monday, before he was released the next day.

The American Kickboxing Academy product holds wins over the likes of Thiago Alves (twice), Diego Sanchez, Paulo Thiago and Erick Silva, but that apparently isn’t good enough for Rebney, at least not at the moment.

Coincidentally, Bellator’s 170-pound champ, Ben Askren, has a wrestle-heavy style that is not always appreciated by the crowd and the same can be said of Fitch.

Perhaps Rebney is afraid Fitch would be able to out-grapple Askren, a Bellator staple, in a title fight or perhaps he is just content having names like Ben Saunders, Karl Amoussou, Bryan Baker and Douglas Lima at the cream of his welterweight crop.