Should weight cutting be banned?
At the highest level of professional fighting, everybody is expected to be the strongest, fastest, and highly skilled. Physical attributes and skillsets are immeasurable variables until the fight happens, so, to make things as balanced as possible before the fight, weight becomes the equalizer.
During weight cuts, fighters dehydrate themselves which made fighters looked shredded to the bone during weigh-ins just to weigh in at their preferred weight class. After weigh-ins, fighters rehydrate themselves overnight until fight night to restore their natural weight which lets their body function in its best form again.
Weight cutting provides opportunities for fighters to weigh in at their lowest physically possible weight to gain size advantages against their opponents. It is a ‘high risk, high return’ strategy which is why some fighters went extreme weight cutting hoping to out-size their opponents during fight night.
According to the article made by Combate, Gleison Tibau walks around at 220lbs and cuts down to 155lbs before his fight against Evan Dunham at UFC 156. Tibau cuts at least 55lbs or 29.9% of his original weight during this fight alone. Tibau weighs at 155lbs during weighs in but gets his weight back up to 185lbs-190lbs overnight which he uses to have a huge size advantage against his fellow lightweights.
If fighters don’t hit the perfect mark during weigh-ins, they’ll be marked as a disgrace. The fighter’s punishment who couldn’t make the weight they supposed to weigh in either loses their belt and a chance to defend it if they are the champion, loses the chance to win a belt if they are the challenger for the belt, lose a big chunk of their salary or worse, the fight will be canceled.
Should weight cutting be banned?
No, if there is no weight cutting, weight classes would be insignificant as well. Weight classes are made to eliminate disparities that turn into mismatches regards of size. Weight classes are the reason why UFC heavyweights whose weight averages at 240lbs don’t fight against UFC flyweights whose weight averages at 135lbs during the fight.
The “weight cutting should be banned” propaganda started becoming a thing when some fighters started dying.
During the ONE Championship: Spirit of Champions weigh-ins, Yang Jian Bing was expected to fight his fellow flyweight Geje Eustaquio. However, Bing failed to cut weight for the flyweight limit of 135lbs. Since Bing couldn’t make weight, the fight was canceled, then, Bing suffered from dehydration and potential heatstroke with regards to his failed weight cut and was brought to the hospital immediately. A day later, during the fight night, he was pronounced dead at 21 years of age at the hospital due to cardiopulmonary failure.
There are more weight-cutting problems in men’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) than in men’s boxing because men’s MMA only has 8 weight classes while men’s boxing has 17. In boxing, the weight class differential is normally inside 3lbs to 7lbs (ex. 105, 108, 112, 115, 118) unlike in MMA which is a 10lbs to 20lbs differential in each weight class (ex. 145, 155, 170, 185, 205). Therefore, boxers have better options to choose from if one weight class doesn’t work with them than with MMA fighters who have to jump at least 10lbs to switch weight divisions.
Just to be clear, picking weight classes had always been the choices of fighters, not the organization. Again, Gleison Tibau and Yang Jian Bing could have fought in the higher weight class to lessen their physical suffering during weight cuts but they rather fight at their lowest physical weight possible just to get that substantial weight advantage over their opponents.
In the end, weight cuts had always been the fighter’s choice because they could have picked a higher weight class to reduce unnecessary hardships before their fight.