Joe Lauzon is a student of the game.
Lauzon, who is coming off a split decision loss to Jim Miller, recently penned a blog entry detailing how now having early weigh-ins could effect Saturday’s UFC 203 card.
Recently, the promotion has been allowing fighters to step on the scale early Friday morning to get settled in. After that, they are able to re-hydrate and get their body into fighting shape once more.
That will not be the case this weekend in Ohio, according to Lauzon.
This is new for the UFC but they have been doing earlier weigh-ins for the last few months. Instead of making us get on weight by like 11am and then wait around until 4pm to get on the scale, we have been able to weigh-in at 8am and then spend the entire day rehydrating. This is huge because I was able to eat like 6 times throughout the day for my last two fights because I had so much time. Normally, I would eat 2 times and then it would be getting late and I would have to go to bed. This is so much better for the fighters because we can weigh-in, eat and drink a bunch and we are dehydrated for a much shorter time. Ohio doesn’t like these advantages because they think it encourages people to cut more weight. I have seen fighters cutting less weight since the UFC started these earlier weigh-ins because you cut all of your weight the night before instead of cutting the morning of weigh-ins, but this is the way Ohio wants to do it.
He further explains some of the interesting rules regarding weigh-ins and Ohio:
The athletic commission can (but won’t necessarily) force fighters to weigh-in a second time on the day of the fight unless they are a heavyweight or super heavyweight. Fighters must be within so many pounds of their official weight the day before. Someone that weighed 155 or lower has to be within 8 pounds and someone weighing more than 155 may not gain more than 13 pounds. This alone creates ALL kinds of issues. Here is a hypothetical to blow your mind.
Let’s say I am fighting Jim Miller at 155.
We are allowed to be 156 for the day before weigh-ins, but sometimes people cut a little extra and might be a little under. Many times I have weighed in at 154.5.
I weigh in at 155 on the nose and Jim weighs in at 156.
Jim weighs in at 168 the next day, which is 12 pounds over when he is allowed to be 13 pounds over. He is fine.
I weigh in at 164 which is 9 pounds over when I was only allowed 8 pounds. I am overweight even though I am 4 pounds lighter than my opponent.
We both agreed to fight at the same weight. Because I was more on weight the first day I have to be 4 pounds lighter the second day. This is CRAZY.
