One of the most discussed topics in MMA right now is the issue of weight cutting. Last month, two fighters who received the most scrutiny for coming in overweight were Mackenzie Dern and Darren Till, who came in 7 and 3.5 pounds over their respective weight limits. Other major weigh-in mishaps in recent history include Kevin Lee missing weight in his UFC Fight Night 128 main event against Edson Barboza, Yoel Romero missing weight in his interim title fight against Luke Rockhold at UFC 221, and of course the Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson bout falling through the 209 card last year due to Khabib being unable to make it to the scales, just to name a few. Well, enough is finally enough, as during an appearance on UFC Unfiltered Tuesday morning, Dana White announced that the UFC is planning to put an end to the morning weigh-ins, which many have considered the source for all the recent weigh-in day catastrophes:
“Yes, I do think it’s that, and guess what? We’re getting rid of it. We’re looking at taking the weigh-ins back to the way they used to be. So when the guys weigh in there at the fight, that will be it. That’ll be the real weigh-in.”
When asked why White believes the morning weigh-ins have caused the recent weigh-in issues, White mostly attributed it to fighters believing they can take advantage of the schedule:
“I believe that any time you change something, everybody looks to take as much advantage as they can of the situation. And I think that when we started doing morning weigh-ins, it was very good. Everybody was making weight. Everything was great. But then people kept cutting it closer, and closer, and closer, thinking they can put on more weight because they have more time to recover. And the reality is, it fucked everything up. So we’re looking to going back to, at 4 o’clock, when we do the weigh-ins, those will be the real weigh-ins.”
White went on to state that the UFC will work with the athletic commissions to get this done but did not provide an expected timeline for when the change may be implemented.
Do you think this will solve the weigh-in day issues the UFC has experienced recently?
