The most dangerous part of being a mixed martial artist isn’t fistfighting in a cage, believe it or not. It’s the weight cut that comes beforehand.
Fighters subject themselves to starvation diets and extreme dehydration in order to compete at the lowest weight classes possible. This results in some eye-popping, but legitimately scary, body transformations from the day of the weigh-ins to the night of the fight. UFC 212’s Claudia Gadelha is a prime example of that, as the Brazilian strawweight showed what happens to a fighter’s body throughout the process.
(Warning, NSFW language below)
On Thursday night, just hours before the UFC 212 weigh-ins, Gadelha posted a photo on her Snapchat account showing what her body looks like during the cut (which was reposted on Twitter by MMA social media personality Zombie Prophet). Tasked with coming in at 115 pounds on Friday morning, Gadelha‘s torso was visibly shrunken to the point where the individual muscle groups of her abdomen clearly visible.
The specifics of how much weight she cut is unknown, but in 2016 she discussed how she previously cut up to 33 pounds for fights with MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz. A strict year-round diet halved that, but even so, forcibly losing more than 10 percent of one’s body weight in anticipation of a cage fight is no easy task.
That showed at the UFC 212 weigh-ins (check out the video above). While Gadelha made weight on the first attempt, the cut was even more obvious live than in pictures, with the clearest physical marker being a cavernous line down the center of her six-pack.
Of course, while the cut was undoubtedly difficult, Gadelha showed up fresh on fight night.
Rehydrated and looking healthy, she posted the most dominant win of her UFC career, taking out former title contender Karolina Kowalkiewicz in the first round.
But even though the contest is behind her, Gadelha finds herself right back at the start of the next cut. Keeping her weight low and staying ready for a short-notice fight is an unfortunate reality for her and most UFC fighters.
Precedent suggests she’ll be able to make the cut without incident and still perform at a high level. Unfortunately, she has to hope she can also avoid the potential long-term health issues that often come from these cuts.
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