Issue 186

December 2019

It's the one thing all fighters hate. it's the biggest problem in MMA. it can even kill. And yet it continues. Weight cutting has huge implications for fighters' health, and the authorities are trying to stop it. But are they winning the fight?

Neuro-science and advancing research into physiology and physiognomy continues to tell the fight industry one thing: the long term effects of excessive weight cutting in a short period of time has harmful long-term effects on the body, and can precipitate major health issues. 

Even in recent weeks, with new research out from MMA events this year, the commissions are acting powerfully, and unilaterally to ensure the greatest measures are adhered to in what will always be an inherently dangerous sport. Leading figures in MMA met just a matter of weeks ago in Los Angeles, among them Michael Mazzulli, ABC President and Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulations Director and Andy Foster, head of the California State Athletic Commission, who insist that serious measures are being taken, and will be acted upon. Close to zero tolerance, in fact, given the findings. 

“It’s the most serious issue we’re facing in MMA,” Mazzulli told me. “We maybe didn’t know about big weight cuts in the early days. It’s prevalent in the sport and in boxing. But we need it controlled in MMA for the health of the fighters.”

On October 15, the California State Athletic Commission passed a new rule, on a vote from its officials, that will mean that fights will be cancelled going forward if either competitor weighs in at over 15 per cent above their contract weight on fight day. The mark has been laid down, it will likely cause some controversy and no-go fights to begin with, but they felt it had to happen. CSAC are insisting that promoters, managers, trainers and matchmakers remain responsible for implementing this. It will be zero tolerance.

The disparity between weights, says, Foster is "a health and safety issue," and he is without doubt completely right. 

Changes have been coming for some time, of course. In 2016, the commission passed the now widely-adopted rule moving day-before weigh-ins from the afternoon to the morning. The 'brains trust' over weight-cutting issues have simply reacted to the findings which have come out over this year. 

According to the data amassed by CSAC – in a report highlighted by ESPN – out of 285 MMA fights in a 10-month period, 10 per cent of fighters weighed more than 15 per cent above the contracted weight class. It differed in boxing, with only nine out of 585 matches. It shows the culture of weight-cutting within MMA must change, according to those overseeing the health and safety issues for the combatants of our sport. 

This is at the very highest level, moreover. For example, eight fighters who competed at the Bellator 228 card in Inglewood, California, weighed in over the 10 percent threshold for weight gained between Friday’s weigh-ins and Saturday’s event. Five of those athletes were 145 pounders competing in the ongoing Bellator Featherweight World Grand Prix. Among them, Juan Archuleta exceeded the 10 percent weight gain limit set by the commission when he weighed in at 144.6 pounds on Friday and then set foot in the cage on Saturday at 164.8 pounds — a 14 percent weight gain. This was the second time for Archuleta breaking the commission’s weight gain stipulation. Likewise, A.J. McKee, voted No 1 fighter in MMA under the age of 25 with a group of renowned pundits recently, who delivered an eight-second knockout in his featherweight Grand Prix contest. But McKee had added 12 percent of his body weight between Friday and Saturday, going from 145 pounds to 161.8 pounds.

On the same card, the German Daniel Weichel went from 144.2 pounds to 165.5 pounds – a 15 percent gain – before earning a win over Saul Rogers. Going forward, the commission will retain the right to insist that fighters move weight classes based on the amount of weight gained. It makes sense. 

'Big John' McCarthy certainly concurs. “The problem is this, the sport of MMA is not the UFC or Bellator," McCarthy told me. "If you have the top athletes doing something a certain way because over time they’ve become proficient at it, it’s not quite as bad. When you have fights that are being done in Italy and Canada – all over the world – in little tiny promotions, you have fighters who don’t know how to cut weight. They don’t know how to do it, but they know their heroes cut 25 pounds – so that’s what they’ll do, go from 180 pounds to 155lbs. And that’s where the problems come from. You’re not trying to change the sport because of the big promotions. They have people who are helping them and they’re trying to get an advantage. But this advantage, it’s started to become dispelled. Take a look at the careers of certain guys. Darren Till losing too much weight all the time, look at what happened when he jumped up in class of opponent. Jorge Masvidal used to be a 155lb fighter. He had a career there, but look at what he’s done at welterweight. He’s got energy. He’s a tactician fighter, he’ll never be the stronger guy. If you’re the better technical fighter, you don’t need to be stronger. Look at his knockout over Askren; it was planned out and prepared.”

John Kavanagh, head coach at SBG, Ireland, believes it is the single most concerning issue in mixed martial arts. 

“It’s the only safety issue that I really worry about in the sport. You see weigh ins where fighters are stumbling. I think something has to be done to get athletes closer to their fight weight – year round. The way USADA do it with their drug testing, they could do random weigh-ins. If you’re 10 per cent above your weight class then you’ll be moved up.”

Has Kavanagh ever had to advise his fighters that they are cutting too much weight? “I’ve not really. I tend to get guys from the beginning of their amateur careers and we can talk about which weight class to be in. Yes, sometimes they take off a couple of kilos. I’d rather work on skills than trying to cut an extra few kilos.”

McCarthy is on board with that way of thinking, and has a great saying on a fighter 'being right'. And that means on the right weight. “The body will readily go where the mind has already been. If you’ve prepared the right way that includes not going through the mental and physical torture of weight cutting," he explained to Fighters Only. "It’s important a fighter feels good because then you’ll usually perform well.”

The policing of weight cutting is really where it matters. “Elite fighters are doing it, but they’re doing it with people who understand the process. They have nutritionists," said McCarthy. "Look, they’re over hydrating. Drinking two gallons of water beforehand so they can do the weight cut. Am I going to say that’s good? It’s never good. But we’ve got to do something to protect the guys on the regional shows. We’ve had people die. When you have people die from weight cuts in a sport that is about how physically healthy you are, that’s saying something. I would change certain things within California, but they’re on the right path. The right path is having the fighter understand their weight will be monitored before the fight. Understand you can only gain so much weight after you weigh in, so you need to have your weight down to a certain weight over time. You’ve got to take care of your body structure beforehand. That’s what we’re seeing from a lot of guys now, they’re starting to get it.”

It is an open secret that fighters will have the salt baths overnight before the morning weigh-ins, and if you have ever been at a hotel housing the fighters ahead of an event, it is no surprise when you see a bank of white towels piled up outside a suite or room. McCarthy weighed in on the numbers of fighters using this practice. Staggering, too, the numbers he believes are doing it. 

“I’d say well over 60% of fighters are water loading or using salt baths or going into saunas. It’s miserable. It’s not fun. What are we worried about? We’re worried about the health and safety of the fighter. I’m worried about damage right here and now and what happens to you later on in life. The kidney failure and kidney stones. The trauma to the brain. 

“Weight cutting comes from wrestling, boxing has some and horse racing has a lot,” he continued. “Jockeys have to get to a certain weight. Wrestling doesn’t have a lot of head trauma. It’s not the same issue. What happens to your body when you dehydrate is your brain starts to shrink. Any shaking of the dura mater, the thing between your brain and your skull, damages it. When you shrink the brain the little capillaries break easier and sit on the brain. We know we could have someone end up with a subdural haematoma. Boxing has showed it’s always the lighter weight fighters who have these. Weight cutting and weight loss along with head trauma is a bad combination.”

Wrestling identified and tackled their issues some time ago, but the culture of huge cutting still prevails. “Wrestling has changed because of the NCAA. Amateur wrestling, because of deaths due to weight cutting, has changed. This was maybe 12 years ago. It was so extreme,” revealed McCarthy. “We had young men losing their lives to a weight cut. NCAA changed the weight-cutting procedure. There isn’t even 10 per cent, you get weighed in at the start of the season and they tell you where you can be. That’s part of what California is doing with MMA. In MMA we can have California do it but you get licensed in a different state.”

In Milan recently at a Bellator event, Fighters Only spoke to Alessio Sakara, who is a mature, happier, and indeed stronger and more resilient fighter at light heavyweight than he ever was at middleweight. 

“Weight cuts are no good,” agreed ‘Legionaris’. “I have a lot of experience now. I have a good coach and watch my diet. When you cut too much weight, it’s dangerous. You don’t need to do it. I wish I’d been light heavyweight earlier in my career. I wish I’d done it more. All those years at middleweight was hard. I’d get more injuries because of dehydration. Now I’m happy.”

Even Sakara's opponent, Canaan Grigsby, the American, shared a similar view. 

“I stopped cutting weight half way through my career. Now that I’m closer to my walking weight, I’m a much healthier fighter. It’s absolutely such a big stress-reliever to not have to deal with starving yourself. It’s such a burden. You’ve got to get out of that mentality that you’re going to be the bigger, stronger guy. You should be ready for anything regardless of what you weigh.”

There have been high-profile fighters revealing the extent of their weight cuts in fight week – like Anthony Johnson and Johnny Hendricks. Huge cuts in weight. It beggars belief that Johnson, now fighting at heavyweight, used to cut to welterweight, while Hendricks would lose 40 pounds in the ten days before a fight. 

McCarthy again. “If you’re going to be a professional, you’ve got to conduct yourself as a professional. You can’t balloon up. If we have the rules in place, hopefully we’ll have guys who don’t balloon up because they can’t make weight. At the time Johnson was walking around at 200lbs or 205lbs and he was dropping 30-35lbs. You could see it affect his performances. Every time he got beat, he got gassed. His body was shutting down and not allowing him to perform because it had been abused. Now look at him – he's going to come back as a heavyweight.”

So too with others. “Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum look much healthier at middleweight,” McCarthy argued. “That’s because they’re doing everything right now. They’re not killing all their preparation with the weight cut. If you feel better, you’ll perform better. If you feel like crap, you’re probably not going to get the best performance out of that body. There’s no way that weight cut doesn’t affect you.”

The highly respected coach and fight guru Conan Silveira, whose current fighters include Sakara and Amanda Nunes, believes major advances have been made in the sport in recent years. “What is on offer today with nutrition, is incredible support. Out there is whatever you need to cut the weight and be healthy. I don’t think it’s as bad as it was.”

Silveira has vast experience with the weigh cut. “I’ve definitely been through it many times. But a lot of fighters don’t search for information. That’s knowing themselves and how your body works. When you deal with your body and your body doesn’t respond as you thought it would, it becomes a second person. You don’t how much energy you spend when you talk or blink, your body knows. You have no idea the transformation you undergo until the day you fight. It is huge."

Silveira offers this analogy on the body. "You have to see your body as a supermarket. Every night when you go to sleep the cleaners come in and redo the shelves. Every product goes back into its place. When you leave everything to the week of the fight, you pretty much create a mess. It’s the Thursday and you have a lot of weight to cut, you have the cleaners going crazy. They’ll know it’s time for them to clean but they don’t know what time they open. They’re all over the place. The next day you expect it to be clean and open on time? That’s on fight day. What creates the confusion is after you do the weight cut, you eat and drink well, you feel ready to fight. That’s a big mistake. You get confused by what you feel and what’s happening inside. What I believe is you have to have time to adjust yourself. I believe in slicing off very small amount of weight for several weeks before. That helps you on the week of the fight to achieve happiness. You’ll still eat and drink, but you don’t have the feeling you’re dying. That’s the feeling you have when you do 20lbs plus weight cut. On Thursday you feel miserable. Just because you ate pizza and had a gallon of water after the weigh in doesn’t mean you become a happy man fighting. You’ll not feel hungry or thirsty but inside it’s a mess." 

Nunes he says, has it down to a fine art, now, and perhaps that is reflected in the UFC champ-champ's performances. “She was 5 pounds over on Thursday of International Fight Week," Silveira told Fighters Only. "It’s not about how much you cut, it’s about how you conduct your week. You might have 5lbs or 20lbs. It should not be a stress. Your first round is not the first round, it’s the weigh in. If you’re already stressed, it’s bad for the fight. You can’t have that feeling gone by Saturday. Her weight cut stress is less. It’s part of that, but her mind is incredibly strong.”

Overall, though, Silveira does not believe fighters will adhere to the new regulations simply because they are now in place. "I don’t think people will change by being forced. You have to have your sleep and nutrition right. You have to have time to adjust. Sakara was 203lbs two days from his last fight and now he’s fighting at 205lbs. He was miserable at middleweight. He could cut the weight, but the cost was too high. You can’t snap back in 24 hours. If you’re super sad, you’re not getting up on Friday laughing. Things don’t change that quickly. You need the process to slowly adjust your body.”

Bottom line, though, is that Silveira concurs on the danger of desperate weight-cuts, to the short and long term health of those doing it. “Weight cutting is dangerous when you do it wrong. But nowadays it’s getting much better." 

Back to Mazzulli, who insists that every commission and every official must treat this issue as one of the most important features of the sport today that must change, in culture and in practical application.

“It’s about educating the fighter to manage their weight properly. Safety and being able to rehydrate, and being able to weigh in at the right weight. Why do heavyweights last so long? In boxing and MMA, they continue to fight way longer. I think it’s a direct correlation between weight loss and longevity. Randy Couture fought until his mid 40s. He never had to worry about cutting weight. MMA is fairly young. These kids have to understand what they’re doing to their bodies.

"It’s unhealthy and these kids don’t get it,” he continued. “Half of them don’t know how to hydrate themselves after the fact. You’ve got to put salt back in your body too. Some of them listen and some of them don’t. It’s a very difficult issue."

“It’s difficult to police them now. There’s a culture out there that is completely unacceptable. They don’t know what they’re doing to their bodies and how their bodies react to drastic water loss and gain," Mazzulli told me. 

“If you go to any fighter and say what’s the worst thing about fighting. It’s about the weight cut because it’s horrible. My theory is you don’t have to listen to me, but if I save one kid’s career, I’m happy. All the guys know I’m not playing around. One kid came out with a towel around his waist. You’re a professional. You don’t come like that. That’s not acceptable. You want the sport to be respected, so respect the sport. If I can help one kid be safer in his career, I’m happy. Your body is a machine, without it you’re not going to have a career. Treat it right.” Spot on.