Joe Rogan agrees with journalist Ariel Helwani’s notion that Charles Oliveira was robbed of his title at UFC 274 due to a scale controversy.
Oliveira was stripped of the UFC lightweight title for missing weight ahead of his UFC 274 main event against Justin Gaethje. Despite not being eligible to win the belt, Oliveira finished Gaethje in Round 1 via rear-naked choke.
Just days after Oliveira’s victory, Helwani went on The MMA Hour and claimed that he was screwed by the promotion following his weight miss. This came as many questioned the functionality of the scales in Phoenix that were used for fighters to monitor their weight.
UFC executive Marc Ratner denies that the scales were tampered with ahead of Oliveira’s weigh-in, but Helwani and Rogan disagree.
During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan gave his thoughts on Oliveira missing weight before UFC 274.
“He’s a very, very nice guy, and he got screwed in his last fight,” Rogan said of Oliveira. “There was some shenanigans with the scale. Some people messed with the scale. Here’s a problem these digital scales, foreign fighters- they use kilograms. And in America, obviously, we use pounds, right… So, these scales are calibrated and then the foreign fighters would reset the scale so they could switch it back to kilograms. So it fu*ked up the whole calibration. And so he would weigh in the night before the weigh-ins, and he was like, ‘oh, I’m good to go.’ And then in the morning, he goes and shows up for the weight cut and it’s a pound plus off and that is directly related to this calibration issue.” (h/t MiddleEasy)
Oliveira is now the No. 1 lightweight contender after defeating Gaethje. He’s expected to return later this year to compete for the now-vacant lightweight belt.
Oliveira earned the title following Khabib Nurmagomedov’s vacation, finishing Michael Chandler at UFC 262. He went on to successfully defend it against Dustin Poirier last December at UFC 269.
UFC President Dana White said during his UFC 274 post-fight press conference that extra security will surround weight scales going forward. For Oliveira, he’ll look to regain the lightweight throne in his next Octagon appearance.
Do you agree with Joe Rogan and Ariel Helwani regarding Charles Oliveira’s weight miss?
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