Charles Oliveira is placing blame on the Arizona State Athletic Commission for his missed weight at UFC 274.
Charles Oliveira is still reeling from his missed weight at UFC 274. The whole ordeal was one that had not been seen before and even now in the aftermath, the topic is still at the forefront of the former champion’s mind.
The day before UFC 274 was set to go down in Phoenix Arizona, fighters on the card, including the lightweight champion Oliveira came to the official weigh-ins. Oliveira missed weight on his first attempt and was given another chance. After some time, he missed weight again and was stripped of the belt.
Since this day, some other fighters along with Oliveira himself have come out to accuse the scale of being wrong and saying that there may have been some tampering. Oliveria has now gone into some more details about this issue in a new interview with ESPN Brazil.
“I’ve never had a weight problem since I went up in category. Usually, on Thursday at 8:00, I’m already in weight,” Oliveira said translated from Portuguese. “Then I told my team to let me do the weight cut later, and when it was 10 pm I was already in the weight. I called my parents and told them I was in the weight, that everything was fine.
“The next day I was happy, playing with everyone, when I weighed I was 1kg above the scale, it was already another. I immediately said it was crazy. It was impossible. I did exercises, went to sauna, everything that was possible to do I did, I had lost 800g quickly. Then we started to receive information from all the fighters that there was a mistake in the balance, all the fighters received it and I was the only one who did not, even though I was the champion of the category.”
Oliveira went on to win his fight against Justin Gaethje but was forced to leave Arizona without the belt. He remains persistent that he did everything he could have to make the weight that day, despite some backlash from his fellow fighters. He is placing the blame on the commission for their lack of scale consistency.
“It was 200g missing, and I did something I hate, which was getting into the hot tub. I was in it for 40 minutes. I went to weigh myself still with the wet underwear, gave the same weight. I weighed myself without underwear and gave the same weight. So, for me, they could have ripped my leg off, still give the same weight.
“The city athletic commission robbed me, they stole from me. That’s the reality. They wanted to take off my belt to mess with my head, but it happened the other way around. This served to show the division and the world that I am another Charles, lightweight champion. No matter how hard they try to mess with my head, I’m the champion.”
“The city commission stole from me, they wanted the champ to be from their town, but it didn’t come anywhere near that. I think there was some pressure on the scale. I could go up anyone, I wasn’t going to beat the weight.”
The issue of the scale was one that made it all the way to the top of the UFC. Company president Dana White has addressed the issue and going forward will be placing security around the official scale beginning the night before weigh-ins in order to prevent tampering.
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