At the half-way mark of 2018, one of the biggest stories in the sport so far this year is fighters missing weight in the UFC. Stephen Thompson recently shared his thoughts on the subject.
In a new interview with Chris Taylor of BJPenn.com, Wonderboy, who recently lost to Darren Till after the English star missed weight for their Welterweight bout by a sizable margin, had plenty to say about the popular MMA topic.
The former two-time UFC Welterweight title challenger weighed-in on the news that UFC will be moving back to traditional weigh-ins and dropping their early morning official weigh-in procedure, a fact that was confirmed by the UFC President Dana White in several recent interviews.
“I know Dana White was saying they wanted to go back to the 4 or 5 o’clock official weigh ins? My response to that would be ‘heck no’ man,” said Wonderboy in the interview. “During my last weight cut I was thinking how did I ever get through half of a day being down at 170. Not just a half a day but Thursday night and then you would have to keep that weight all the way up until like four or five o’clock the next day. I mean to have less time to rehydrate is just plain stupid. People are just being lazy. People just aren’t making weight because they know they can get away with it.”
Wonderboy continued, “It’s like yeah ok I have to forfeit twenty percent of my purse, but if I win I will move up the rankings and probably get paid more for my next fight. You know? The consequences just aren’t enough. It’s allowing people to get away with some major bullcrap. If the UFC implemented stricter penalties, like the fight doesn’t happen, or you have to give your opponent half of your purse, or you can’t move up the rankings if you miss weight, then I believe more people would be inclined to follow the rules.”
When asked if fighters should have a say in the matter regarding the decision to change the official weigh-in process, Wonderboy pointed out how there doesn’t seem to be too many who are in favor of the decision to change things up, so it is kind of pointless.
“From what I’ve seen on social media, all of the fighters have made it pretty clear that they don’t want to go back to the old afternoon weigh ins,” said Wonderboy. “So I don’t know why they (the UFC) are still planning on doing that.”
Thompson also explained why he feels the upcoming weigh-in system, if it were in order for UFC 225 this past weekend, would have likely resulted in the cancellation of the advertised main event.
“I think it will eventually cause athletic commissions to cancel more fights,” said Thompson. “I mean look at Yoel Romero from UFC 225, there is no way he would have been allowed to fight had those weigh ins taken place at 4 or 5pm. No chance. That fight would have been called off for sure.”
What do you think? Is laziness the main reason for the recent trend of UFC fighters missing weight? Sound off in the Comments section below.
