By The issue of weight cutting is once again in the MMA zeitgeist as the sport’s leading promotion worries that continued struggles could lead to the most severe consequence — government oversight. The practice, in which fighters significantly dehydrate their bodies to get under the agreed weight limit only to both rehydrate back to a higher weight on fight night, has long drawn criticism due to its ability to trigger expensive medical bills for the promotion, cancel fights fans were excited about and generate negative coverage from the media.
“Nobody wants to see the nightmare scenario come to pass,” said UFC president Dana White, who once got caught on camera in a club being physical with his wife then slapping her twice, when asked about featherweight William Gomis, whose pre-scale vomit and visibly shaky weigh-in led to officials not clearing him to fight at UFC 301 this Saturday. “All it’s going to take is one fighter dying and suddenly you have to worry that somebody at the commissions might try to do something, and nobody wants that. That’s why we have a team of doctors monitoring our fighters, and they’re committed to making sure that any attempted cuts aren’t allowed to progress beyond severe organ damage, temporary insanity and looking like death.”
White vowed that the UFC still holds true to its commitment to broadcast partner ESPN and is doing everything in its power to ensure all cuts stop shy of a medical catastrophe so severe the network would be forced to acknowledge it, and pointed to the company’s spectacular record of shielding all other disastrous cuts to date from the network’s never-ending content and take machine.
