Same day weigh ins isn't a solution. A lot of guys would just fight dehydrated for the weight advantage.
Hydration tests are closer, but you also need funding for those. The UFC could maybe afford it, but smaller orgs would struggle.
Same reason guys cut massive amounts of weight now. In most people's eyes size is more important than endurance.
Wrestling, judo etc. has same day weigh ins; we still see guys cutting significant amounts because they think they can recover in time for competition.
Same day weigh ins doesn't solve the problem, it'll make it worse. There needs to be something else alongside it to make sure people aren't cutting 10lbs of water the day of the fight.
People are idiots.
I agree that same day weigh-ins aren't the answer. However, I think fight time weigh-ins are.
As you move weigh-ins closer to the fight, you're decreasing the average amount of weight that'll be cut, while also decreasing the time there is to rehydrate. For example, with 24 hours to rehydrate, average water cut is X. If they instead had 48 hours to rehydrate, X would go up, which is bad, but they'd have more time to rehydrate, which is good. If they go in the other direction and give fighters only 6 hours to rehydrate, X would go down, which is good, but they'd have less time to rehydrate, which is obviously very bad.
Well, I'm suggesting that we decrease both of those numbers to 0. If fighters don't have any time at all to rehydrate, then there's no purpose of dehydrating in the first place.
I'm suggesting that fighters literally get weighed right before they walk out to the cage, or even right before they step into the cage. There'd be a preliminary weigh-in held the day before, to check that fighters are gonna make weight so fights don't have to be cancelled fight time, and also just to put on a show, a purpose the current weigh-ins serve.
Firstly, there might be logistical problems with this idea. It might be difficult for promoters and commissions to pull off. I don't know enough about their operations to know whether this would be a problem.
Secondly, and more importantly, there'd be a new disadvantage in MMA if my idea were implemented. Since the idea would be for no fighters to cut weight, all fighters would have to diet down to a weight within their weight class during camp. Some fighters stay in-shape year round, so this wouldn't be a problem for them. However, most fighters get out of shape when not in camp. When they sign to fight someone and get into camp, they diet down during camp, losing excess body fat. Sometimes, fighters don't lose as much weight as they'd have liked during camp, so when the fight comes, they're forced to cut that extra weight as a result...
In my system, if fighters mess up their diet during camp, as the fight approaches, they'll be forced to make a decision: Either be honest and contact the promoter, saying they won't be able to make weight, which will result in either fight cancellation or a catchweight and a fine, OR cut those excess pounds of weight, in water, without the intention of rehydrating, since that isn't possible.
People who choose that latter option would be fighting dehydrated, and thus be at a risk health-wise, depending on how much water they have to cut. But there are some things that could be done to combat this. Firstly, hydration tests could be done. That's a big proposition, and I don't know the science and the financial costs behind it. Secondly, promoters could take more responsibility in booking fights. When they book fighters, they could be required to find out fighters' weights, to see if they'll be capable of making weight come fight time. Thirdly, I'd like to think that with my idea and this new change in system, the culture of the sport would change. There's fighters like GSP and Conor McGregor and probably others who don't get much out of shape while out of camp. I'd like to think that more fighters would adopt this approach, since they no longer have the option to be lazy and just rely on cutting the excess weight in water.
Ultimately, no matter what measures are put in place to combat the fighters who choose that latter option, I'm aware that there'd still be some fighters who end up fighting dehydrated. I just hope that that number would be kept extremely low.
So, in comparing the current system to my proposed system, both have their advantages and disadvantages. They'd need to be weighed against each other (no pun intended) to determine which system is best. My system would have it so that the vast majority of fighters don't cut weight; by and large weight cutting will have been removed from the sport. But there will be rare cases in which fighters fight dehydrated due to lack of preparation and communication with promoters. The current system gives fighters 24 hours to rehydrate, however, 90% of fighters do it, because 90% of fighters cut weight.
We don't know the full extent of how damaging these weight cuts are to fighters long-term. It isn't just the fighters who get concussions during the fight, or kidney problems pre-fight. Fighters who don't suffer either of those things, may still suffer long-term because of repeated weight cuts. Fighters constantly talk about the weight cut being the "real fight", and are often miserable during the entire week of the fight, unable to focus on the fight itself, instead having to focus on weight management. And it's all a pointless side effect of
prisoner's dilemma: Most fighters fight people who weigh a similar amount to them, yet they both have to go through this weight cutting process.
TLDR: I think MMA should adopt fight time weigh-ins in an attempt to remove weight cutting from the sport. The positive would be that the majority of fighters wouldn't cut weight. The negative would be that the minority that do, literally wouldn't have time to rehydrate, and thus would be at a severe disadvantage.
