... has begun to take full effect. One of the things I always liked about MMA, especially early on, is that it was a competition decided by skillsets, strategies and tactics in the cage. Guys would fight at a healthy natural weight and make exciting fights. But it has now taken the exact path of boxing, in that it is now ALL about cutting weight and fighting smaller dudes. I saw the TUF finale (didn't see the season leading up to it) a couple weeks ago, and sure enough there was a couple of 6+ foot tall f*cking TOOTHPICKS fighting it out at 145, both trying to outreach each other. Then I see Johnathon Brookins from one of the previous seasons come in looking like an starved albino Ethiopian. It's really sad, because the fights are becoming less about who is more skilled fighter and more about who is more skilled weight-cutter. At one time I believed that MMA had inherent dynamics that made size less relevant, but now I know it doesn't.
I don't totally disagree, but those tall guys were making weight like 4 of the previous six weeks so it isn't a completely bullshit weight like often happens.
If you can make the weight you can make the weight. If you're significantly weakened by making the weight, well that gives the opponent an advantage and evens things up a bit.
In any sport with weight classes, part of the sport is going to be how good you are at cutting weight. Personally, I would like to see same day weigh-ins.
Yep, it's just part of the sport. If you can make the weight, you can make the weight, that's the rules.
In high school wrestling, they only permit a kid to cut down to a certain body-fat %. Because before-day weigh-ins were done for health purposes and not for to create tactical advantages for better weight cutters, I think a strong argument could be made for doing the same thing for boxers and mma fighters.
Not sure why anyone would think MMA was immune to weight advantages. The sport is wrought with college and Olympic level wrestlers. They lead the pack when it comes to weight cutting. Day before and same day weigh-ins both have their pros and cons. Personally I like the day before. It leads to fewer cancelled bouts or catch-weight fights. And fewer title fights that become non-title due to a fighter missing weight. And using the recent TUF card as an example is way off. Those guys probably didn't have their weight vary much more than 10 pounds over the last 5 weeks. Both fighters in the final fought 3 times over the last 3-4 weeks. Not to mention, TUF fighters historically belong a weight class or two below where they fight on the show due to not having time to manage big cuts. The list of former TUF fighters that are now fighting a class below their TUF weight class is endless.
True Like I said though I had at one time thought that the tactical, strength and skill aspects of MMA "outweighed" most of the advantages gained by serious weight cutters. But that's not what I'm seeing anymore, and I just find it a bit dissapointing. Sucks when you see a skilled guy in there with a full tank of gas get held outside or matted and dry humped by some gangly weight cutter. Or just seeing guys coming into the ring looking like a ghost. Brookins for example looked near death before the fight even started, his head appeared 50% larger than it should have due to his emaciated body.
Help me out here. Can you name a marquee MMA fighter (obviously not HW) that won via tactics, strength and skill without a significant weight cut. I understand what your saying, but I think the history of the sport says otherwise. In the early days of the UFC the organization didn't have any real talent to speak of. It was basically a bunch of guys getting painfully introduced to BJJ and catch wrestling. So maybe you could call that guys using a tactical advantage rather than weight, but I just see it as hacks being fed to guys with a relatively unexposed skill set (BJJ). In Pride, it was a little different early but not completely. There was still the wrestling influence and guys cut weight. Obviously the Japanese fighters who cut a ton of weight were fewer but the list of Pride champs is still littered with names of guys who cut weight. There are a few. Guys like Wandy, Belfort, Gomi, etc didn't really cut much until recently, but again, so much was open weight early on that it was tough to peg the real weight class of some guys.
Well, call him fat, but BJ walks around near 175. The dude has fought as high as 195. He cuts 10-15 pounds to make 155. At 170, where he wasn't quite as successful, he doesn't cut much. When I asked the question, Penn was the first guy that popped into my mind as well. But 10-15 pounds isn't a small cut.
Henderson is a good answer, I think. Dan barely cuts anything to make 205. And he's had decent success at 205 in PRIDE and Strikeforce. However, almost all of Henderson's MMA loses have come at 205 while he has a lone defeat (Jake Shields) at 185. And obviously Dan cuts a good amount of weight to make 185.
That actually didn't start until about what 2003-2004? Cuz when I wrestled it was just whatever weight you can make. I weighed 127 and would drop to 112 every week, and I was 5"10 -5"11 but I am actually glad they made the change.
