Why fighters SHOULDN'T go up in weight

Orochimaru 大蛇丸

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Ariel asks Dustin if he'll ever go up to 170, and Dustin being the honest, humble dude that he is, admits guys at WW are TOO BIG, I see so many fighters have too much of an ego to admit this fact. Someone at the elite level having 15 lbs. on you is a HUGE deal



Now here's Cowboy, a guy who bought into the delusion that you can just not cut weight and fight at a weight class higher than you should be, and actually had a fair amount of success at 170, but now at the end of his career, wants to be at 155. Think of how many fights Cowboy wasted being a good 170 when he could've been competing with the best at 155.




I know there are exceptions like Whittaker, but it's almost always a bad move to go up
 
Poirier wouldn´t be outsized by 15 pounds lol. He is huge LW. Could make WW without issues and be average sized.
 
Why you shouldn't move up in weight by a guy who moved up in weight and found great success.

Yeah, he certainly was more successful at LW than FW.

There's a sweet spot for everyone. They just have to find it. It's a struggle to compete against bigger men, but there's no question some hurt themselves by cutting too much to avoid those bigger men.
 
Conor learned that the hard way when he fought good competition in LW
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Also, I remember reading that Roy Jones's decline started after going up in weight and winning the HW title against Ruiz. Dropping all that weight when he went back down in weight class really hurt Roy's performance, and he was never the same after the Tarver KO
 
Why you shouldn't move up in weight by a guy who moved up in weight and found great success.
Yeah for sure, the point is he grew into his body and now walks around at 178, he still cuts a lot of weight to make 155
 
As for Cowboy, I don't think he was likely to ever be champ at LW, unless some Bisping-like fortune came his way. So it made sense for him to stay as healthy as possible by maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding serious cuts. The move back to 155 might be driven by desperation.
 
It all depends on the match ups.

If you move up and face superior grapplers, being the lighter guy is terrible.

If you move up and don't have to worry about your opponents grappling, you might be one of the fastest strikers in that division.
 
As for Cowboy, I don't think he was likely to ever be champ at LW, unless some Bisping-like fortune came his way. So it made sense for him to stay as healthy as possible by maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding serious cuts. The move back to 155 might be driven by desperation.
He wouldn't of been champ, but at his best he was top 5 at LW, and fought for the belt
 
It all depends on the match ups.

If you move up and face superior grapplers, being the lighter guy is terrible.

If you move up and don't have to worry about your opponents grappling, you might be one of the fastest strikers in that division.
That's usually at LHW, or HW because those divisions are so weak

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There is a sweet spot for everybody. There is no exact science to finding your correct weight, which is why the UFC not having 155, 165 and 175 lbs divisions sucks for a lot of fighters. 195 I understand because there isn't enough elite fighters at those weights to take 33% on average of fighters from both 205 and 185.

Some fighters are just cutting too much weight, some delude themselves into thinking they are too small, some are at their correct weight and just focus on other things to improve, etc etc etc

It's been proven over and over again that there is no science to it, going by performances can be misleading sometimes... but if you have no trouble making weight in one division like Dustin at 155 lbs, there is no reason he should up. If Khabib was too big for him, Usman would decimate him.
 
it's case by case. some fighters should go up, some shouldn't
Bingo. This whole things a bit silly to use an example of “not moving up” when Dustin moved up from 145 himself and became one of the best 155ers ever.

It totally depends on the situation. For every guy that moves up and gets the business like Max Holloway @Arkham's Notorious Geyser theres a guy like Gilbert burns or Thiago santos that moves up and has a lot of success
 
the real issue is they dont take the proper amount of time to put on the appropriate new muscle and they lose speed !!

you def not getting faster


Izzy case he chose to stay and use his speed advantage and that's not enough.

Taking a year off and putting more weight on would have helped tremendously.

he got out muscled and couldn't do ishhh

his punches really had no effect either IMO

couldn't see anything but a nice head kick like Jon pulled off on Cormier

but he isnt on that level to pull that off on jan
 
Bingo. This whole things a bit silly to use an example of “not moving up” when Dustin moved up from 145 himself and became one of the best 155ers ever.

It totally depends on the situation. For every guy that moves up and gets the business like Max Holloway @Arkham's Notorious Geyser theres a guy like Gilbert burns or Thiago santos that moves up and has a lot of success
I guess I should've clarified, my point is almost everybody should be cutting a significant amount of weight

Dustin grew into his body and is 178 lean now, he's cutting over 20 lbs. to make LW

What I'm talking about is someone like Cowboy, or Conor who walks around in the 170's cutting a few lbs. of water weight and fighting at 170
 
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