A whopping five competitors failed to make weight at UFC Vegas 64 weigh-ins on Friday morning.
“Rodriguez vs. Lemos” takes place at the APEX facility in Las Vegas. The incident appears to have set a new record for the modern era of weight-cutting for the UFC.
Former bantamweight Nate Maness was the competitor who seemed to be hit the worst.
Maness weighed 125.5 pounds for his flyweight debut against Tagir Ulanbekov (124.5 pounds) on the ESPN+ main event. However, he began to resemble James Irvin in early 2010 after the UFC on Versus weigh-ins.
Maness said to UFC,
“I know people say it gets harder to cut weight as you get older, but it’s really gotten easier and easier for me as I’ve gotten older, gotten more experience with when to eat, the training, and things like that.”
“When I fought Umar last June, I got back in the cage the smallest I’ve ever been, and I didn’t really see the point of being the smaller guy in there if I can make the weight. Height-wise and reach I’ll be a bigger guy, but I’m going to be weighing the same as those guys on fight night. This is the class I belong in right now, and that’s really the only reason for the move.”
The other competitors on this weekend’s card weren’t all that ready:
155 lbs: Grant Dawson
125 lbs: Shanna Young ( made weight on her third try after cutting her hair)
135 lbs: Benito Lopez,
135 lbs: Ramona Pascual
125 lbs: Carlos Candelario
In MMA, cutting weight is a contentious topic.
Athletes and viewers seldom ever questioned it when it was seen as a vital component of the sport. But as the public has learned more about the dark side of the sport, they have become more shocked by the things that fighters often do in order to reach the predetermined weight.
A mixed martial artist must endure hours of starvation, dehydration, and jogging, as well as time spent in and out of sauna suits and sweating out every last drop of blood, just to get to the event.