In the main event of UFC 206 on Saturday night, Anthony Pettis fought Max Holloway for the UFC interim featherweight title. Well, it was a title fight for Holloway, not Pettis. Pettis weighed in at 148 pounds, three pounds over the featherweight division's 145-pound limit. This made him ineligible to win the title. This got me wondering, why don't fighters just fight at their natural weight?
Cutting weight is dangerous, at least the way fighters do it. Fighters drain the water from their body, almost to the point of severe dehydration. About five days before they weigh-in, fighters drink 2 gallons of water. Then, the next two days, they drink 1 gallon of water each day. The next day, they drink 0.50 gallons and the day before weigh-ins they drink 0.25 gallons of water. On the day of the weigh-in, they don't drink any water until after stepping on the scale. What this does is simple. After consuming a lot more water than usual on the first day, your body will hold onto whatever sodium it has and get rid of its potassium. Then, as you decrease your water intake, you'll start flushing out water. The increased levels of sodium proportionate to the water in your body will continue to draw water out of your cells for excretion. This process allows fighters to drain massive amounts of water out of their body and lose an extreme amount of weight in a short period of time. In addition to draining their bodies of water, fighters limit their carb intakes to 50g per day. They eat proteins and fats, avoid salt at all costs, and sweat as much as possible. After they weigh-in, fighters drink one liter of water every hour and eat clean carbs, proteins, and fats, to replenish their bodies. This allows them to get back to their normal weight within 24 hours. This way of cutting weight is incredibly dangerous and had led to death before.
So why do they do this? Fighters cut weight because they want to have an advantage on fight night. Weigh-ins are usually Friday mornings and fights are usually Saturday nights for the UFC. Fighters fight at weight classes below their natural weight so that they are able to weigh more than their opponent on fight night. For example, a fighter who naturally weighs 190 pounds could decide to fight in the welterweight division which has a weigh limit of 170 pounds. His opponent could legitimately be 170 pounds. Now, the fighter who weighs 190 has to drop 20 pounds before weighing-in. The week of the fight, he drains his body of all water, nearly dehydrating himself to weigh 170 pounds Friday morning. After weighing in, he rehydrates himself and eats like he hasn't seen a burger in 20 years. Since the fight is 24 hours later, this allows him to get back to his natural weight of 190 pounds. So, when the two fighters finally step into the cage, one will have a 20-pound weight advantage over his opponent. This is why fighters cut weight. To get that major advantage.
However, there is a problem with this. Almost all fighters cut weight. So continuing with the example, both guys fighting in the 170-pound bout would be stepping into the cage at 190 pounds. So there would be no advantage. I disagree with the concept of weight cutting. Fighters should not be nearly dying 24 hours before stepping into a cage to fight another human being. Fighting is dangerous enough as it is. We don't need the fighters to be weak and dehydrated as they make the walk down to the Octagon.
Here is a picture of UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. The top photo is McGregor weighing-in for a fight at 145 pounds. The bottom, is McGregor weighing-in for a fight at 170 pounds.
UFC color commentator Joe Rogan has been outspoken about weight cutting. In an interview with SB Nation in 2014 he said,
"I’m a huge proponent of health and safety when it comes to the most dangerous sport in the world, and one of the most dangerous aspects of this dangerous sport is weight cutting. We’ve had guys die from weight cutting — both in college wrestling and in MMA in Brazil. It happens. Guys can die from weight cutting. I’ve seen guys that looked like they were going to die. I saw Travis Lutter when he weighed in for Anderson Silva and missed the weight. When he came back … I’ve never seen a person look worse in my life than Travis Lutter did then. He was shuffling. He couldn’t walk so he was sliding his feet across the ground. His lips were chapped, his body was completely dehydrated and his cheeks were sunken into his face, and he was going to fight the baddest motherf***er on earth in less than 24 hours."
He even went as far to say that weight cutting is cheating:
Weight cutting is dangerous, there’s a reason they weigh in the day before the fight; it gives them a chance to rehydrate. It’s crazy. Let’s call it what it is. It’s kind of cheating, but it’s cheating that everybody does. You’re allowing someone to pretend they’re 155 pounds. Motherf***er, you’re not 155 pounds! You look at Gleison Tibau and it’s like, ‘Dude, you are not a 155-pound fighter. You’re just not. I understand that you can get onto that scale and it can show 155 pounds, but that is for the briefest window possible.’ As soon as guys get off the scale, they suck on Pedialyte, they drink coconut water and do whatever they can to get fluids back into their system, and they’re f***ing dying.
I agree with Rogan. Weight cutting is just too dangerous. Guys should not be dying. And if we're watching these fights after guys go through these brutal weight cuts, imagine how entertaining the fights will be if they didn't have to do that.
Anthony Pettis is a former UFC lightweight champion, where the weight limit is 155 pounds. He made the decision to drop down to featherweight after losing his title to Rafael dos Anjos, and losing subsequent lightweight bouts to Eddie Alvarez and Edson Barboza. He debuted at featherweight earlier this year with a submission win over Charles Oliveira. He weighed in at 146 pounds for that fight. Although the limit is 145 pounds, fighters are allowed to be a maximum of one pound over. After Pettis missed weight this weekend, UFC president Dana White expressed concerns about his future at featherweight. "He came in, when he landed here in Toronto, he was 10 pounds (over), so he should've made the weight. What that tells you is he's too old and he's too big to make that weight, is my opinion. So we'll see where we go from here," White said on TSN SportsCentre. "I don't know if he can make the weight."
Pettis said in an interview with MMAFighting.com, that he got down to 146.5 pounds before his team decided he would not be able to lose any more weight. "My body just wouldn't let go of that extra weight. It's just one those things. We did everything right beforehand, everything was on point. My body just gave out. I had nothing left to give. In the end, we decided that my career and health are more important than those two extra pounds," Pettis said. After the fight, which he lost, Pettis announced he will move back up to lightweight. He said the weight cut was just too difficult for him and he can't make the weight.
Pettis isn't the only fighter who has ever missed weight. It happens quite frequently actually. In fact, last month at UFC 205, Kelvin Gastelum missed the 170-pound weight limit for welterweight fights for the third time in his career. His fight with Donald Cerrone was canceled as a result. After the weigh-in, Dana White told Fox Sports, “I’ll never let him fight at 170 again, I think he missed this one by 10 pounds.” This weekend at UFC 206, Gastelum returned to 185 pounds, where he started his career. In a middleweight bout against Tim Kennedy, he looked much healthier, scoring a TKO victory. Situations like these need to keep happening. Fighters need to be healthier and fight at the weight that best suits them.
Check out this video from ESPN Sports Science on the differences between featherweight Conor McGregor and welterweight Conor McGregor:
