Michael Chiesa has made his move to welterweight official.
Chiesa competed earlier this month at UFC 226. He went one-on-one with former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis. Chiesa lost the bout via submission in the second stanza. Before the bout, Chiesa failed to make weight and immediately told the media that his time at lightweight was over.
Now, “The Maverick” is putting his words into action. Chiesa took to Instagram to reveal that he will no longer be cutting weight to make 155 pounds:
“In the last few years, I’ve felt my skills as a fighter drastically improved, especially through 2018 but I’ve yet to reflect that. There’s a couple changes that need to be made, one being something new and the other is returning to something from the past. Obviously the new is it’s time for me to test the waters at welterweight. All of my family, many of my teammates and almost all my coaches have been trying to talk me into going up a weight class. I spend the better half of my camps stressed about weight, feeling like a shadow of myself in training and just being miserable doing the thing I love most in the world. I pushed my body very hard this last cut, one of the scariest experiences of my life and I still failed. I don’t want experience that ever again.”
Chiesa hadn’t missed weight for a professional mixed martial arts bout prior to UFC 226, but he told Ariel Helwani that he felt he was going to die after his most recent cut. “The Maverick” said an ideal situation would be the opening of a 165-pound division, but he will have to make do at welterweight. Time will tell how Chiesa fares at 170 pounds and who will welcome him to the division.
Do you think Michael Chiesa can find success at welterweight?
