UFC Breaking News: The Weight Cutting Problem

By JM “Shade” Daguio

Weight cutting has always been an issue in contact sports, the idea of taking full advantage of size come fight time becomes a life-and-death struggle fighters go through to make the lowest possible weight. It is a time honored tradition coming from amateur wrestling to competitive judo, weight cutting adheres to the notion that a bigger skilled fighter will always defeat a smaller skilled fighter but at what cost? Unlike Boxing which has 3 to 5 pound difference in weight classes, MMA’s weight class disparity is astounding, at least 10 pounds separate between weight classes. Flyweight has the 125-limit, Bantamweight has 135, Featherweight has 145, Lightweight has the 155 limit.

From there the 10-pound difference increase. From 155 it will jump to Welterweight which has the 170-pound limit, a difference of 15 lbs; The middleweight division has the limit of 185 lbs., another 15-lb. difference; It goes up to light heavyweight again at the 205 lb. limit that increases to a 20-lb. difference from middleweight. Heavyweight has a limit of 265 therefore it has a staggering 50-lb. weight difference from light heavyweight.
The size difference cited above has a lot of implications both positive and negative.

In the UFC a typical lightweight fighter would surprisingly be walking around 15 lbs. more than his actual fighting weight class, they only weigh 155 lbs. for 30 minutes prior to and after the weigh-ins, other than that it’s essentially small middleweights fighting at lightweight.
Anthony Johnson, currently a light heavyweight contender, used to fight at welterweight, he would cut so much weight he would look like he was dying during weigh-ins, the emaciated look, the dry lips, this is what Johnson would have to put up just to get that size advantage. Not all weigh-ins were successful though, sometimes he comes in on point sometimes he just seems too dehydrated to even bother, he would take a pay cut for not making weight which only adds insult to injury.

But nevertheless Johnson was very successful at welterweight, getting most of his wins via stoppage but it cannot be denied anymore that he didn’t belong to welterweight, he was tall, broad and muscular, he was toying with much smaller men. Johnson in hindsight wished he went up in weight a little early.

“If anybody brings up 186 pounds to me, I look at them cross-eyed,” Johnson said. “Honestly, I start feeling sick when I get to 204 pounds. My body won’t allow it. It’s most likely a mental thing but I don’t even want to think about it.”
Johnson had most likely learned his lesson, he is now thriving at light heavyweight where he is the most if feared fighter, yes, more feared than Jon Jones.

For others though it’s still a tough sell to fight at their walking weight rather than cutting, the old wrestling culture still permeates within the MMA community were collegiate wrestlers also thrive, the weight cutting culture is almost instantly brought in to MMA.

The UFC has recently proposed a drastic change in weight cutting and avoiding weigh-in mishaps of before. There is a proposal of retooling weight classes and equate them to most fighter’s walking weight, for example flyweight won’t have a 125 limit but a 138 limit, because most flyweights walk around 140 or 145 and weight cuts will be much easier if not non-existent, such changes will be also implemented to the other weight classes to put them in the right weight class but it’s still at the proposal stage and further tweaks will be introduced to fully change the paradigm in fighting.

Fighter safety is the main priority; careers will be defined on how the fighters will be taken care of. The reduction of weight cutting in MMA is huge leap.

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