Take a look at how Cody Garbrandt is doing two weeks out from his flyweight debut at UFC 269.
UFC 269 on January 11th doesn’t just feature the hotly anticipated lightweight title fight between champ Charles Oliveira and Dustin Poirier, or the slightly less anticipated mauling of Juliana Pena by women’s champ champ Amanda Nunes. It also includes the flyweight debut of former bantamweight champ Cody Garbrandt, who will face off against Kai Kara-France.
Kara-France isn’t Garbrandt’s only opponent. The other is the weight cut. This is the first time Garbrandt has tried to make it to 125 pounds, and it’s a big enough cut that some people are wondering how well he’ll be able to perform at the weight. Pictures coming out of Garbrandt’s camp feature “No Love” looking pretty skeletal.
Take a look:
Seccccc le Cody Garbrandt pour ses debut en flyweight, a voir si son menton tient le coup. pic.twitter.com/71JnLdqf9r
— kakarot (@kakarot_ufc) November 28, 2021
Fighters looking like Christian Bale from The Machinist as they try to make a weight class drop is nothing new. Jose Aldo looked pretty corpselike the first time he went down to bantamweight as well, but now he’s fighting there regularly and looking pretty good. The track record of bantamweights dropping down to flyweight is slightly more spotty.
TJ Dillashaw dared to dream he could champ champ it by dropping down to 125 to fight Henry Cejudo. He went full spooky skeleton during the weight cut, and I’m no doctor but my diagnosis is the lack of skull juice around his brain contributed to his getting KTFO by “Triple C” in the first round.
So the question is will Garbrandt be more like Aldo: reinvigorated and competitive? Or will he be like Dillashaw? Dehydrated and chinny? On January 11th we’ll find out!