Weight cutting has been an integral issue at the forefront of the conversation in MMA lately.
It seems like every card is ruined by a fighter missing weight, and usually by a large margin. Main event fighters like Darren Till, Yoel Romero, and Kevin Lee have soiled recently featured bouts, and fight fans are rightfully getting frustrated.
Solutions from more weight classes to eliminating early weigh-ins have been considered, but thus far, nothing substantial has been done to address this glaringly obvious issue in MMA.
You won’t believe the amount of weight some fighters have clocked in at. Even worse, many of them are repeat offenders, making every weigh-in a gamble as to if they will actually make weight.
However, some of the fighters on this list who struggle with their weight cuts have been champions; for example:
10. Renan Barao – UFC 177
The former bantamweight champion had some serious difficulty making the 135-pound limit and didn’t even come close at UFC 177. Barao was attempting to take the title he had lost to TJ Dillashaw beforehand, but the rematch didn’t end up happening at UFC 177.
Rumor has it that he was cutting down from 163 pounds, making it a nearly 30-pound weight cut.
Barao’s weight cut was so bad that he actually passed out while in the sauna as he tried to sweat out water weight in an effort to make the bantamweight limit. Barao smacked his head on the bathtub upon blacking out and was forced out of the fight as a result.
Joe Soto ultimately filled in for Barao, making this a seriously messed up weight cut on Barao’s part. Blacking out and not even making it to a title fight is as bad as it gets.
Barao now fights at featherweight, which is still likely a difficult cut, but at least it hasn’t caused him to blackout.
Sometimes in the sport of mixed martial arts the toughest fights aren’t fought in the Octagon, but rather behind closed doors in the days leading up to the event as fighters do whatever it takes to make weight for the bout. It’s a dangerous practice that pushes fighters to the limit, both mentally and physically, […]
Sometimes in the sport of mixed martial arts the toughest fights aren’t fought in the Octagon, but rather behind closed doors in the days leading up to the event as fighters do whatever it takes to make weight for the bout.
It’s a dangerous practice that pushes fighters to the limit, both mentally and physically, and in the most extreme instances it’s actually been known to cause death.
For instance, back in December of 2015, ONE FC flyweight fighter Yang Jian Bing passed away at just 21 years od age after a horrendous weight cut led to him suffering a heart attack.
Thankfully, there’s never been a fatality in the UFC, but there have been many horror stories of weight cuts going horribly wrong over the years.
in this article we’ll look at 10 of the most brutal weight cuts in the promotion’s history, including instances where stars have passed out, been rushed to hospital, and in some cases stared death in the face after dehydrating their bodies to extent that they had nothing left to give.
(UFC yearbook photo of the day: Alexander Gustafsson, tall kid. Click for full-size image. I especially like how the teacher is rocking an Armani Exchange t-shirt on picture day. #Sweden / Photo via Sherdog forums)
(UFC yearbook photo of the day: Alexander Gustafsson, tall kid. Click for full-size image. I especially like how the teacher is rocking an Armani Exchange t-shirt on picture day. #Sweden / Photo via Sherdog forums)
(Playing dead: Works against bears, not against Shogun Rua. Photo via Getty.)
James Te Huna‘s 2013 got off to a rocky start. The hard-hitting slugger was paired against Canadian splitsterRyan Jimmo at UFC on FUEL 7 in February, and was favored as high as 3-to-1 over the former CP guest blogger. Early in the first round, however, Te Huna ate a vicious head kick that would have ended the night of a lesser man. Although the New Zealander would right the course and end up defeating Jimmo via unanimous decision, he would drop his next two contests to current title challenger Glover Teixeira and former champion Mauricio Rua via first round submission and KO, respectively.
While there’s no shame in losing to either of those gentlemen, Te Huna has quickly gone from one of the division’s top fighters to one who could be fighting for his job. The four fight win streak he was able to build in the wake of his UFC 127 loss to Alexander Gustafsson erased, it appears that Te Huna is opting for a favorite change-up amongst struggling MMA fighters: Dropping a weight class to save his career.
Te Huna recently sat down with The MMA Corner to discuss how his decision to drop to 185 for the first time in his career came about. The answer may surprise you (if you were in a coma all of last year):
(Playing dead: Works against bears, not against Shogun Rua. Photo via Getty.)
James Te Huna‘s 2013 got off to a rocky start. The hard-hitting slugger was paired against Canadian splitsterRyan Jimmo at UFC on FUEL 7 in February, and was favored as high as 3-to-1 over the former CP guest blogger. Early in the first round, however, Te Huna ate a vicious head kick that would have ended the night of a lesser man. Although the New Zealander would right the course and end up defeating Jimmo via unanimous decision, he would drop his next two contests to current title challenger Glover Teixeira and former champion Mauricio Rua via first round submission and KO, respectively.
While there’s no shame in losing to either of those gentlemen, Te Huna has quickly gone from one of the division’s top fighters to one who could be fighting for his job. The four fight win streak he was able to build in the wake of his UFC 127 loss to Alexander Gustafsson erased, it appears that Te Huna is opting for a favorite change-up amongst struggling MMA fighters: Dropping a weight class to save his career.
Te Huna recently sat down with The MMA Corner to discuss how his decision to drop to 185 for the first time in his career came about. The answer may surprise you (if you were in a coma all of last year):
It was a pretty embarrassing loss, and last year was a pretty bad year for me. I had a lot of issues going into my fight in London, and we tried to work some things out in my time off between fights. And then there was that embarrassing knockout to finish the year off. This year, I am excited to take on a new challenge and take on a drop to middleweight.
It’s about making a fresh new start and taking on a new challenge, and I know I’ll be able to make Middleweight. Middleweight is probably a bit more of a natural weight for me. Right now, I am always eating so that I can stay up at Light Heavyweight. I’m one of the lightest guys at Light Heavyweight, so I know that if I eat normally I’ll be able to hit Middleweight. I’ve been fighting at Light Heavyweight for my whole career, but I think that this challenge is the right move.
You can read the rest of Te Huna’s interview over at The MMA Corner. Here’s hoping that Te Huna can make the cut to 185 without winding up in the James Irvin “Skeletor Look-alike” Hall of Fame. But should Te Huna successfully (and safely) make weight, who would you like to see him paired up against for his middleweight debut, Nation?
In addition to being one of the least decision-prone fighters to ever grace the Octagon, James Irvin is also notorious for being the unluckiest bastard in the history of the sport. From poorly-timed injuries and ill-advised weight cuts to chemical misadventures and freak accidents, the Sandman has suffered through enough hardships to fill the careers of ten journeymen. So with the help of our friends at Havoc Store, we put together an illustrated timeline of the most unfortunate moments in Irvin’s MMA career, which you can check out after the jump.
In addition to being one of the least decision-prone fighters to ever grace the Octagon, James Irvin is also notorious for being the unluckiest bastard in the history of the sport. From poorly-timed injuries and ill-advised weight cuts to chemical misadventures and freak accidents, the Sandman has suffered through enough hardships to fill the careers of ten journeymen. So with the help of our friends at Havoc Store, we put together an illustrated timeline of the most unfortunate moments in Irvin’s MMA career, which you can check out after the jump.
(If James Irvin was a super-hero, his arch-nemesis would be Dr. Fitchtopus. / Photo courtesy of fcfighter.com)
Last week, we described Stefan Struve as “one of the least decision-prone fighters on the UFC roster,” and after he ended yet another fight this weekend before the final bell, we started to wonder — how accurate was that statement, anyway? And who else ranks near the Dutch heavyweight in terms of low decision ratio within the Octagon? So, we assembled a list of the UFC fighters (past and present) who have been least likely to meet the judges; for the purposes of this list, we only considered fighters who have made at least eight UFC appearances.
[Update: After having some knowledge dropped on us by @MMADecisions, we’ve expanded this list beyond a top-ten.]
As it turns out, Struve comes in at #5 among active UFC fighters, and shares the same decision ratio (8.33%) as Royce Gracie. But there are 11 fighters in front of him on the all-time list, led by welterweight crowd-pleaser DaMarques Johnson, cursed sluggerJames Irvin, and UFC pioneer Don Frye, who all managed to make it through 10 UFC appearances without ever going to decision. And now, the leaderboard…
DaMarques Johnson:10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
James Irvin: 10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Don Frye: 10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Drew McFedries: 9 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Charles Oliveira:8 UFC fights*, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Ryan Jensen: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Jason Lambert: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Gary Goodridge: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Jason MacDonald: 14 UFC fights, 1 decision, 7.14% decision ratio
(If James Irvin was a super-hero, his arch-nemesis would be Dr. Fitchtopus. / Photo courtesy of fcfighter.com)
Last week, we described Stefan Struve as “one of the least decision-prone fighters on the UFC roster,” and after he ended yet another fight this weekend before the final bell, we started to wonder — how accurate was that statement, anyway? And who else ranks near the Dutch heavyweight in terms of low decision ratio within the Octagon? So, we assembled a list of the UFC fighters (past and present) who have been least likely to meet the judges; for the purposes of this list, we only considered fighters who have made at least eight UFC appearances.
[Update: After having some knowledge dropped on us by @MMADecisions, we’ve expanded this list beyond a top-ten.]
As it turns out, Struve comes in at #5 among active UFC fighters, and shares the same decision ratio (8.33%) as Royce Gracie. But there are 11 fighters in front of him on the all-time list, led by welterweight crowd-pleaser DaMarques Johnson, cursed sluggerJames Irvin, and UFC pioneer Don Frye, who all managed to make it through 10 UFC appearances without ever going to decision. And now, the leaderboard…
DaMarques Johnson:10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
James Irvin: 10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Don Frye: 10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Drew McFedries: 9 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Charles Oliveira:8 UFC fights*, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Ryan Jensen: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Jason Lambert: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Gary Goodridge: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio Jason MacDonald: 14 UFC fights, 1 decision, 7.14% decision ratio Joe Lauzon: 13 UFC fights, 1 decision, 7.69% decision ratio Gabriel Gonzaga: 13 UFC fights, 1 decision, 7.69% decision ratio Stefan Struve: 12 UFC fights, 1 decision, 8.33% decision ratio Royce Gracie: 12 UFC fights**, 1 decision***, 8.33% decision ratio Frank Mir: 20 UFC fights, 2 decisions, 10% decision ratio Cain Velasquez: 9 UFC fights, 1 decision, 11.11% decision ratio Pat Barry: 9 UFC fights, 1 decision, 11.11% decision ratio Vitor Belfort: 16 UFC fights, 2 decisions, 12.5% decision ratio
* Including his no-contest against Nik Lentz at UFC Live: Kongo vs. Barry.
** Not including his forfeit against Harold Haward at UFC 3.
*** Refers to his default “draw” against Ken Shamrock at UFC 5 that resulted from time running out; judges weren’t used in the UFC until December 1995.
Honorable mention:Frank Trigg never went the distance in seven UFC appearances, but since we’re only including fighters with eight or more fights in the promotion, he falls just short of qualifying.
Keep in mind that this list was thrown together on the fly after about an hour spent on Wikipedia, so if we’re leaving anybody out who should have made the top ten, please correct us in the comments section.
