Are weight classes necessary?

johncola said:
So he'd stop pointlessly cutting weight. He'd go back to fighting other 210 lb fighters. It's probably be cyclical, where we'd see periods of no weight cutting, then all of a sudden fighters start trying it, then it resets. Hopefully, most of the time, there'd be no weight cutting.

Also, to add to the long paragraph above, fighters shouldn't agree to fight fighters bigger than them. If fighters are cutting weight and fighting men much smaller than them, then it'd become obvious, and fighters would just stop signing to fight them.
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MMA isn't like boxing. You can't just "not agree to fight" as easily. The UFC controls matchmaking much more and fighters are more cogs in the machine than independent contractors who can pick their fights.

As for people not cutting weight... the simplest and best way to solve the weight cutting problem is to just do the weigh ins on the night of the fight as I've detailed.
 
Mochan said:
Your "flexi system" makes no sense because you still want Titles to be assigned to the appropriate weights. So how is that different from what's happening right now?


What you describe already exists.



I think what you are more after is people not sticking to weight classes and flitting up and down depending on who you want them to fight.

Now if weight cutting is your issue, I've been saying this for the last 15 years. Just weigh them in on the day of the fight, nay the night of the fight, and be done with it. Miss your weight, you can't win the Belt, and get fined 50% of your purse. If you're champ and miss weight, you are stripped of the title, if challenger makes weight he gets it ("Interim").

Nobody is going to dare to weight cut at all.


As for that P4P List -- sorry that's just stupidity. A sport with no champions is no sport at all. Sports are inherently about competing to find out who's the best. You need to crown champions. P4P lists don't cut it -- we already see how meaningless P4P lists are here on Sherdog. You need a real belt and a real champion.
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Mid-post I went back on the idea of keeping champions. No, they'd probably have to be removed.

I'm an advocate of fight-time weigh-ins. I've written about this before on these forums. The weigh-ins would have to literally be done right before the fight starts, to prevent any sort of potential attempt to cut weight. I think this system would be better than the current system. However, it isn't without its problems. Since weight cutting would be removed, fighters would be relied upon to diet down to fight weight during camp. Fighters who are overambitious or lazy and thus don't lose enough weight, would be faced with the option of either cutting the remaining weight without the intention of rehydrating (since that wouldn't be an option) or just pulling out of the fight. I think these problems could be combatted, but the system isn't perfect. Like I said though I agree that it's better than the current system where everyone cuts weight.
 
Mochan said:
You're missing something here.

People who are tuning in for Conor and Rhonda aren't "Sports Fans." They are Reality TV Drama Queens.

Real fans of the sport want to see who the best is.
Reality TV Emo Queens just tune in to charismatic trash talkers.


The sad truth is that there are more drama queens today than sports fans and they're what move the needle even in this sporting domain. You can argue that "that" is what the sport needs to survive but I would rather the sport die out than evolve into that kind of rubbish.
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I agree with you. Real sport fans want to see who the best is. But going along the same lines, if we're "real fans", why do we need belts to validate our opinions of who the best is? Like I said in the main post, the best fighters are the best fighters regardless of whether or not they have titles.
 
Your concept already exists and is entirely possible. It's called catchweight. Almost nobody wants it.
 
TIMELESS TRUTH said:
Seriously, this discussion never changes.
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Direct me towards the posters who resemble me. "they don't think like I think, they don't talk like I talk". And yes, I appreciate the irony in me using that particular quote
 
Mochan said:
MMA isn't like boxing. You can't just "not agree to fight" as easily. The UFC controls matchmaking much more and fighters are more cogs in the machine than independent contractors who can pick their fights.
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The UFC would actually help in my system. They'd help enforce it. They'd share some responsibility in booking similarly-sized fighters. If fighters were to not agree to fight someone on the grounds of thinking that they cut weight, then the UFC could be an arbiter. The particularly egregious examples should be obvious.
 
How about you have fighters weigh in weekly the last couple of weeks before the fight. They can not constantly cut doing a longer period (would kill them) and would be forced to stick around they "natural weight". Would be hard logistically but would eleminate some of the current issues for sure
 
johncola said:
I agree with you. Real sport fans want to see who the best is. But going along the same lines, if we're "real fans", why do we need belts to validate our opinions of who the best is? Like I said in the main post, the best fighters are the best fighters regardless of whether or not they have titles.
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Cause the ufc earns most money from the casual fans who buy tickets and ppvs.
 
Are weapon restrictions necessary?

I mean why can't dudes just negotiate knives, chainsaws, swords or pikes?

We could have Brock vs Mighty Mouse with a chainsaw. Lawler with a knife vs Reem. Reem with a baseball bat vs JDS with a lead pipe.
 
How the fuck any of you are seriously having a conversation here is ludicrous.
 
Turn it into the ultimate fighting no-championship?
 
Disappointed in this thread. Was expecting Mighty Mouse vs Lesnar, Cruz vs Reem discussion.
 
NoContest said:
I like championships.

Also, this would never happen because no one's gonna tune in to watch a #1 ranked team or athlete fight a #2 ranked team or athlete for the fun of it. But if it's for a shiny cup or belt, they'll flock.

People like prizes, it's silly but what are you gonna do?
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It's not silly. Fighting and other contests demonstrates fitness and group dominance, which is necessary within a functioning social group to determine an efficient distribution of limited resources to help the group survive and to actually reduce violence within it. So we are hardwired to pay attention to the pecking order and who is where in it. Championships are an easy way to keep track of this.

Evolution is an amazing thing. People are fascinating. Try studying things you don't understand instead of hand-waving them away.
 
No they don't need weight classess. And the NFL also doesn't need the Super Bowl, they should just have the Packers challenge the Cowboys every year and negotiate how many minutes of lay they'll do every year on a game-by-game basis...
 
there are too many weight classes in UFC for my personal liking but they would still sell tickets and ppv with open weight.
 
EGarrett said:
It's not silly. Fighting and other contests demonstrates fitness and group dominance, which is necessary within a functioning social group to determine an efficient distribution of limited resources to help the group survive and to actually reduce violence within it. So we are hardwired to pay attention to the pecking order and who is where in it. Championships are an easy way to keep track of this.

Evolution is an amazing thing. People are fascinating. Try studying things you don't understand instead of hand-waving them away.
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Nice. What a load of bullshit. That neo-darwinist free market garbage you're spewing has nothing to do with evolution or Darwin, who never said "survival of the fittest". Look up bonobos. Look up hunter-gatherers. Look up the research of dr Robert Sapolsky. Look up the essay "the original affluent society". Try studying things instead of swallowing whole the propaganda turd of mass media.
 
There's gotta be some to separate the extremes, but we don't need that many. Maybe something like the old Pride should be enough.
 
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