Joe Rogan Was Right About Weight Cutting Being Stupid

[Blackjack]

Not true. Nate's been well documented as to cutting minimal weight. He doesn't gain a lot as it is because he's vegan. When he misses weight it's simply because he doesn't give a fuck. He never looks drained and in fact at both welterweight and lightweight still looks kinda skinny fat at weigh ins.

That's true and look at the great results he's had with that strategy of not cutting weight but instead just keeping in very good shape all year around. He's known for having great endurance and never fatiguing after the first one or two rounds. Plus he also has the ability to knock guys out, os his power is good too. Finally, his grappling is also among the best for fighters his size.

 

[concept Coop]

You do realise that Nate Diaz cuts weight right? Including getting to 170.

Right. But not like McGregor does. McGregor is clearly one of the very biggest guys to ever fight at 145. He is rewarded for his ability to cut/recover. He's fighting guys below his would-be weight class.

 

[Blackjack]

What people don't seem to understand is, discriminating fighters just by weight classes alone is unfair.

There are many different factors to fighting advantages than just weight alone, why do we put so much emphasis on weight?

Reach, Wide Shoulders, Chin, The amount of Fast Twitch muscle fibers, Flexibility, Agility, etc. Weight is only one factor. Some guys like Gus, Jon Jones, Conor, Werdum, Condit, Michael Chiesa, Rockhold, Stephen Thompson have big frames. Wide Shoulders, long reach, tall. Why do they get the benefit of a larger body while everyone else has to suffer because they don't have the right genetics to take the most advantage of a weight class? These guys are taller and have longer reaches than their competitors, is this not unfair to the other fighters? Sometimes being fair is unfair because we are not all the same.

A certain percentage of what makes fighters like Conor Rockhold and Jones so successful is the fact that they have certain body type advantages over their opponents.

There are ways of still being a great fighter without optimum genetics. Look at Nate Diaz - he has what I would suspect is a low percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers. He's known for having a great work ethic and yet look at his level of muscularity co pared to the rest of the fighters - Nate has one of the least muscular physiques in the sport. He never uses maneuvers requiring lots of power such as throws, slams, etc. "Rampage" Jackson was a fighter at the other end of the spectrum of fast twitch muscle fiber ratio. He was sometimes called "Slampage" because he loved to slam people and often nocked his opponents out with his slams. I say he's the other end of the spectrum from NateDiaz regarding fast twitch ratio because notice how seldom you see guys knocking their opponents out with slams.

If you have a short reach, then you can compensate for that by taking fights to the ground and becoming a submission specialist rather than trying to become a striking specialist.

Finally, if a man truly has poor genetics for being a fighter, then he should;t try to be a professional fighter! There is a reason why so few people are able to reach the professional level in sports. It takes not only great work ethic but lots of talent. If you aren;t burn with the talent such as fast reflexes, which will mean you don;t see punches coming until it's too late, find something else to do for a living. Not everyone can or even should try to be a professional athlete just as not everyone should attempt to earn a degree in engineering or physics. You need a certain God-given aptitude for engineering or physics and if you don;t have it, no amount of studying will make up for it. Life is not fair. yje rules in sports are there to try to make things as fair as they can make them but that should;t be confused with the notion that just because there are rules, life has been made fair. All we can do is try to make life as fair as possible. That's a far cry, however, from actually making life fair.

 

[xMisterxMikeX]

No one complained about guys cutting weight to fight in a lower division before conor. Now all of a sudden everyone is a genius about weight cutting,and only Conor is a coward and a bully for doing something almost every fighter in their own div. is doing.

Really? Where have you been? Its a very old debate. "Fighter X should really be fighting at such and such weight instead of cutting to beat smaller guys"

The only thing "new" with Connor was the crazy money and power UFC threw at him. As if he was the only superstar they ever had.

I'm still curious why Connor was the first to make 1,000,000 base pay.

Not that I'm mad it happened. More fighters will soon follow, thats great. But why was he the first?

 

[Naos]

Right. But not like McGregor does. McGregor is clearly one of the very biggest guys to ever fight at 145. He is rewarded for his ability to cut/recover. He's fighting guys below his would-be weight class.

What has Conor cutting to FW got to do with people saying Nate didn't cut for this fight?

 

[Naos]

Really? Where have you been? Its a very old debate. "Fighter X should really be fighting at such and such weight instead of cutting to beat smaller guys"

The only thing "new" with Connor was the crazy money and power UFC threw at him. As if he was the only superstar they ever had.

I'm still curious why Connor was the first to make 1,000,000 base pay.

Not that I'm mad it happened. More fighters will soon follow, thats great. But why was he the first?

Who else, that consistently made weight, did people say should be fighting at a higher weight class?

It's very easy to see why McGregor made the first million base, he brings the numbers in. Numbers = Money for UFC = Money for fighter.

 

[Ogata]

Remember when Rogan said right before McGregor and Diaz started their fight: "I hope this starts a trend...making guys starve and dehydrate themselves 24 hours before a prize fight is the most stupid, sickening thing we do"

Well, he was proven right. Not weight cutting lie the way Diaz and McGregor were - just at natural weight makes all the mens in the world. If nobody does weight cutting, then they can stop starving and dehydrating themselves and everyone will still be on an even level playing field. All they need is for all the fighters to band together, kind of like if they were forming a union, they need complete solidarity on this.

What we found it is while Conor McGregor is a very good fighter, he's also a bully. He has a freakish ability to cut 25 pounds of water weight so that the 168 Conor we saw at the weigh-ins is capable of weighing in at 145 pounds - 2 weight divisions lower! That means that instead of fighting men his own size, he's dehydrating himself so he can compete against virtual midgets! He went 19-2 fighting much smaller men than he is. I don'tfind that admirable; I find it cowardly.

Tough guy! Lets see you cut that much weight and see who is the coward!!!

Don't get me wrong, I don't care for weight cutting either but it is not easy and it takes great mental effort to pull off each and every time while paying a heavy price.

 

[Blackjack]

Right. But not like McGregor does. McGregor is clearly one of the very biggest guys to ever fight at 145. He is rewarded for his ability to cut/recover. He's fighting guys below his would-be weight class.

That's exactly why I consider McGregor a coward and a bully for fighting primarily as a 145 pounder. That is just so far beneath his natural weight that it's ridiculous. It it weren't, how could he have just weighed in at 168, 23 pounds heavier than his normal weight - a whopping 15.8% gain in weight over his previous fight just a few months ago and yet he didn't look fat at all. He was still very lean and had good muscular definition - an indicator low body fat percentage. If you disagree with me then answer this: If McGregor was;t cutting a freakish amount if weight before his fight just three months earlier, how was able to go from being a lean 145 pounds at weight in 3 months ago, to a lean 168 pounds at weigh-in on this past Friday night? That's a 23 pound weight gain for a 5 foot 9 inch man, a 15.8% weigh gain in roughly 90 days without any visible gain in fat!

 

[TH1RTE3N]

I can't hate Conor for cutting. If he can make the weight, he can make the weight. But I think it's going to be a bit more dangerous with all the restrictions now. I also like the new restrictions for weight cutting as well. But I think eventually Conor will have to go 155, likely after this next fight.

 

[Blackjack]

Tough guy! Lets see you cut that much weight and see who is the coward!!!

Don't get me wrong, I don't care for weight cutting either but it is not easy and it takes great mental effort to pull off each and every time while paying a heavy price.

I wouldn't cut that much weight; I would;t cut any weight at all when I was competing in high school wrestling because I wasn't afraid to wrestle guys my own size! Also, I wasn't trying to get smaller, I was trying to get bigger and stronger and I did. I became the strongest guy on the team, or my entire high school for that matter, pound-for-pound.

As bad as I think weight-cutting in The UFC is, weight-cutting at the high school level is even worse! When you're in high school and you're an athlete, your objective should be trying to get bigger - not smaller!! High school boys are trying to grow, not shrink, and fora coach to pressure them to lose weight and also cut weight by dehydration is wrong and I'll even go as far as to say it's evil.

 

[Grenz]

Really? Where have you been? Its a very old debate. "Fighter X should really be fighting at such and such weight instead of cutting to beat smaller guys"

The only thing "new" with Connor was the crazy money and power UFC threw at him. As if he was the only superstar they ever had.

I'm still curious why Connor was the first to make 1,000,000 base pay.

Not that I'm mad it happened. More fighters will soon follow, thats great. But why was he the first?

I'm pretty sure the only times there were ever collective calls to move up in weight was when a fighter actually missed weight, e.g. Hendricks.

I love how Conor is now the only guy to ever dominate a division who also happens to be one of the biggest guys in that division. Remember when Aldo was a huge FW? How much weight were Randy and Chuck cutting? Franklin? A. Silva? Rockhold ffs. All these guys are massive for the weight they actually fight at. Conor didn't invent or even perfect weight cutting, he was fighting at the lowest weight possible for him and he certainly isn't the first guy to do it.