Absolute Championship Berkut announced that they will introduce a new weigh-in system and revamped weight classes in September 2016.
A Russian MMA promotion by the name of Absolute Championship Berkut recently announced that they would begin to implement a new weigh-in system as well as introduce new weight classes in the latter half of 2016.
According to an interview with the promotion’s founder Mairbek Khasiev, weigh-ins will take place six hours before the fights actually take place, instead of the day before. The plans also include a new superheavyweight division.
“One could fully adopt the experience of the Asian promotion ONE Championship, but such an option was rejected due to the very high degree of invasion of privacy for the fighters that, in my opinion, is not quite correct,” Khasiev told Sovsports.ru. “To find the best solution I’ve spent several meetings with medical colleagues and also consulted with a number of experts in the field of mixed martial arts in conjunction with the athletes themselves. After much debate, we managed to find quite a simple and clear solution that was supported the majority of the discussed participants.”
The new weight classes layout is as follows:
Flyweight – 58kg (127.8 lbs.)
Bantamweight – 63kg (138.9 lbs.)
Featherweight – 68kg (149.9 lbs.)
Lightweight – 74kg (163.1 lbs.)
Welterweight – 80kg (176.3 lbs.)
Middleweight – 87kg (191.8 lbs.)
Light-heavyweight – 96kg (211.6 lbs.)
Heavyweight – 107kg (235.9 lbs.)
Superheavyweight – 107kg+ (over 235.9 lbs.)
ACB will experiment with the new weigh-in system starting September 2016 on their secondary ‘Young Eagles’ shows before introducing it on the main shows in early 2017.