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UFC lightweight Roger Huerta is trading the cage for the soundstage.
MMAWeekly.com reported in December that the Minnesota resident had re-signed with the promotion for five fights, but Huerta and his management on Friday said a career in the entertainment business would be the new priority.
Although he had fully intended to re-up with the UFC, at the eleventh hour, Huerta determined that the time that needed to be allotted to both careers was too much to manage concurrently. He still has one fight remaining with the MMA juggernaught – and he intends to fulfill that commitment – but will make acting his career path.
Huerta said his role in the upcoming film “Tekken,” as well as the encouragement of those close to him, opened his eyes to the new endeavor.
“I had done that whole Tekken thing and I really wanted to pursue that even more, but basically me getting into movies and film was really intriguing to me,” Huerta said. “I realized how hard it was also.
“At the time, I was really too busy with fighting, but I just had a change of heart, where everybody kept telling me, ‘you should probably do some modeling, and they’re like ‘you’re very young, so why don’t you pursue that?’ Eventually, it started getting in my head. I figured, why not?”
The popular lightweight said he would continue to train and take the last fight on his UFC contract when it was offered. Huerta's obligations with the promotion end in April of 2010.
“Fighting is still in me,” he continued. “I’ll still honor my last fight with the UFC, as soon as they tell me when to fight.
“Actually, I would kind of like to fight in April, the Montreal card, cause a lot of the Canadian guys want me to fight on that card. So it’d be kind of cool if I did that. In the meantime, I’m doing other things.”
Huerta's management says they support his new path, which recently blossomed with a three-picture development deal from Lion’s Gate Films.
Those "other things" Huerta mentioned, along with acting, include other avenues of creativity while he awaits his next fight.
“I’m writing a book about my life,” he said. “I thought it was time to do that. It’s been very therapeutic for me putting that out there. There’s a lot of things I leave out in interviews, but why not just do this now?”
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