Isn't weigh cutting a sort of cheating?

What would happen if all fighters just fight at their natural weigh?

I find it kinda disturbing that fighters fight at the lightweigh division, but during fight time they weigh in at 175 or more.
Same happens with all the divisions.

It would be more fair if everybody fought at their natural weight.

During fight time, instead of watching 2 guys weighting exactly the same, we actually see a 20 pound difference.
It is not a way of cheating to cut weight so during the fight you have a significant size advantage??

Another question, why a 155 vs a 205 fight is impossible, but a 265 vs 210 fight is perfectly acceptable?
Why the difference between one weigh class and another is 15 pounds, but in HW you can be 60 pounds heavier and still be in the same division?

 

they can never verify one's natural weight

 

nope.

 

They can. Same-day weigh-ins. Plus a few mandatory weigh-ins earlier (e.g. you have to weight in within 7 pounds a week before) to avoid fighters being stupid and cutting weight right before the fight.

 

yeah, let's help fix the sport by making weight cutting more dangerous and expensive. great job.

 

Yes it as, everyone in MMA are cheats except certain HW's

 

It wouldn't be more dangerous, that's the point of several weigh-ins is that you can't cut weight at all. And I heard the scales bubble is about to burst.

 

It's not cheating because it's legal and everyone does it.

Same day weigh ins with some sort of hydration testing would end it though.

 

TS, your "solution" doesn't really fix the so called "problem" you want to fix.

For example:

Jones now says cutting has become easier for him. He was only 13 lbs over the limit with over 3 weeks until the fight. He'd easily be able to weigh in at 7 lbs. over a week out, and could obviously hold at 205 until the day of the fight.

So now, because he's mastered cutting and still probably wouldn't be super dehydrated or drawn out with a same day weigh in, he's fighting either A) the few other guys who can cut as well as he does or B) way smaller guys who aren't cutting much at all.

 

yes. what i meant was under current conditions

 

Same day weigh-ins would force people to fight closer to their weight instead of playing the weight cutting game and trying to be bigger than your opponent.

Weight cutting is stupid because it mocks weight classes. I bet hardly any 2 people are the same weight come fight day, or are even close to the weight they claim to fight at.

It's cheating in my eyes because a lot of the time you have a bigger guy fighter a smaller guy, pretty much 2 different weight classes fighting.

 

He'd be fighting guys the same size - people who weigh 205 when they enter the cage. I don't think offseason weight matters.

 

Fighters will do whatever they can to get an advantage.


You should research the results of same day weight cuts in other sports

 

Give me 3 examples of this ever happening? In almost 100% of the fights, BOTH fighters hydrate and are above the weight limit on fight night.

 

That's why I said have several earlier weight-ins as well. It makes weight cuts impossible.

 

So are you talking about weighing in literally minutes before the fight, or the morning of the fight?

If it's the morning of the fight, there would still be rehydration and some weight gain. Not as much as now maybe, but still a significant amount.

If you are talking about minutes before the fight, you are asking for logistics nightmares. There's a lot of moving parts to put these events together. If you have guys missing weight minutes before a fight and you are scrambling to figure out how to proceed, it will look like amateur hour.

 

No, same day weigh-ins make athletes cut weight the day of the weight and leave themselves little time to hydrate. This HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED, so it's not wild speculation.

Pretty much all fighters cut around 10-15 lbs. of water at weigh-ins and then put it back on for fight night. There are rarely cases where one guy cuts 10 lbs. and another guy cuts, say, 25 lbs.

Most fighters are probably still w/i 10 lbs. of each other on fight night. So no, not a lot of fights are between 2 guys who are a weight class (10+ lbs.) apart on fight night.

 

Maybe they should take away a higher percentage of the purse. Then they would make sure they made weight right before the fight!

 

Hell, for all I care you can do the weigh-in at the end of the walk-out. And have a scale backstage to avoid the embarrassment of a fighter missing weight. So, for example, if you are fighting in Vegas, then the fighter has so weigh-in at 170 an hour before the fight, and at 171 at the end of the walk-out.

There are easy ways to solve this logistical issues, a weigh-in is a quite easy thing to do.

People would especially like it when women are fighting.