In hindsight, was RDA's move to 170 a bad idea?

He came out firing on all cylinders in his 170 debut, subbing Magny inside 2 minutes, then putting on a spectacular performance against Lawler.

Neither of those wins have aged well since then as both guys have been taking L's left and right and RDA has gone on the worst skid of his career.

It's easy for me to sit back and critique now, but I'll be damned if he ever should of gone to 170. .

Too small for the division and horrible pressure wrestlers for him sylistically at the top. I feel like he should of stayed at LW and he would be a serious contender still and maybe would even get a red panty night?

Discuss..

 

He simply put on too much muscle. He could have been a lean, and mean 155 champ.

 

i dont think he has a choice, he can't cut to 155 anymore while walking around at 185 novadays

 

Course he has a choice, he is only like 5'7" no excuse for not being able to make 155. All he has to do is do some long distance running and he would get back to 155.

 

He's only about 5'8, would have better off dropping some muscle.

 

RDA is the perfect example to illustrate the point that a fifteen pound gap between weight classes is completely unreasonable, especially at a relatively low weight. He's far too big now to make 155 consistently in a way that doesn't seriously affect his performance, but he's still too small at 170, to the point that he's getting bossed around physically. The UFC's weight classes are entirely arbitrary, they should just fix them at a uniform ten pounds.

 

Where did you get your diploma in 'weight cutting'?

 

I have been thinking the same for a long time. He hasnt been the same at 170, he lost some of his better attributes and has to fight bigger guys...

 

You guys dont remember or dont know,he had hard times making cut for last couple of fights at 155..One time passed out (alvarez)... He had no choice but to move up,and now for sure he has nowhere to go. And it aint like he is loosing badly to poor competition, even Chiesa is pretty good at ww.

 

you have a good point here, submitting magny is a good win but no way worth of a top 5 ranking, and lawler has been a shallow of his former self since his fight vs woodley.

 

We need a 165 division..

 

Terrible move, he is smaller than everyone. Magny just can't move his body properly.
Lawler's leg was injured badly in camp and he couldn't even stand normal in the fight.

 

He said that the toll that the LW cut was taking on his health was not worth the money that he was being paid to do it. It's too bad that there isn't a 165 pound division.

 

Sherdog School of Bro Science of course!

 

The UFC missed a perfect opportunity to have GSP vs Woodley for the final 170 lb title and retire that division and realign with 165, 175 185, 195

 

Na, I think he's simply past his prime at this point.

 

I haven't crunched the numbers, but instead of doing it by 10 lbs, why not go by a certain %. Just pulling a random number out of my ass, but lets use 10%. Start at the weightclass under HW and define that limit for weight ins, 205, then anything above that is HW. So from 205, take off 10% of that, and that will be MW. Take 10% off MW and that is WW, and so on and so forth.

 

This is very much a case of questioning everything once someone starts losing. RDA left LW on two losses, had a resurgence then started losing again. His issue is people who apply pressure and don't allow him to be the one who pressures.

 

He just lost to a guy who was also coming up from LW.

 

I think that's true too and this fight really showed it. His striking was neither crisp nor accurate against Chiesa. While watching, I couldnt help thinking that RDA has fallen off a lot. Chiesa is a good grappler but he's awfully one-dimensional. His striking looked terrible and a prime RDA should have been able to light him up but he kept missing.