City Kickboxing co-founder Eugene Bareman appeared recently on Submission Radio, for a wide-ranging discussion, that included weight cutting. At UFC 253, his fighter Shane Young weighed in at the non-title featherweight limit of 146, but opponent Ľudovít Klein stepped on the scales at 150, didn’t bother trying a second time, took the percent of purse penalty, and won. Zubaira Tukhugov also weighed in at 150, for his fight vs. Hakeem Dawodu, but lost via the smallest of margins – Split Decision.
Bareman was not impressed.
We need to do something about it,” he said. “What’s going on is criminal. For me, it’s just as bad as taking steroids. It’s cheating. It’s cheating. More to the point is, there were two guys that missed weight during fight night. There’s the Chechen guy and there was Shane’s opponent.
“These two guys didn’t even try to make weight, they didn’t even try to make weight. They purposely chose to come in overweight significantly, take the fine and have a massive advantage going into the fight. And it kind of, it just rips the guts out of me. Because, man, I’m a good loser. If I lose a fight, then we lose. Well done, shake your hands. But if you cheat, I’m not as good a loser as I want to be. And this piece of work, wherever he’s from, gets his first fight in the UFC, gets this opportunity, and misses weight.
“Shane Young, of all people actually, got a short-notice fight on less than a weeks’ notice to fight Alex Volkanovski, the current champ. The only thing Sean [Shelby] told us, is make weight. He said, look, you are getting a four-fight contract, all you have to do is make weight. And we made weight and we did. I’m hoping Sean told that guy the same thing. He missed weight, he had his opportunity, he cheated. What’s more, he did it on purpose. Anybody who knows anything about fighting and when they’re looking at a guy weighing in, you know how much effort they’ve put in. This guy cheated. He’s lost his opportunity to be in the UFC, as far as I’m concerned. Like, he lost it. He intentionally missed weight, so he should no longer be in the UFC.
Bareman echoed previous statements from his fighter, UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, that 30% of purse is not enough. The coach also advocated for a rule long promoted by Roxanne Modaffferi – miss weight leads to a point deduction.
“The other Chechen guy, he intentionally came in heavier. What Israel is going on about, 30 percent, is nothing. Like, it’s not enough incentive. You have to take more money. But you don’t necessarily need to take more money. A lot of these guys don’t care about the money. Okay, you have to penalize them in the result of the fight. The result of the fight has to be penalized. Maybe start, you get an automatic 10-9 for the first round. I don’t know what they’re gonna do, but guys are cheating and getting away with it, and something has to be done.
“And all I’m doing when any fighter gets in a situation and they take a fight against someone who hasn’t made weight, we all understand why they have to take it, cause they need money. They’ve trained for eight weeks, they don’t have a choice. They have to take it to feed their family. But all it’s doing is perpetuating the situation. It’s just making the situation worse. What we need to do is, those guys should receive a big penalty and maybe not fight. But the problem with that is, then the guys don’t get paid, they only get their show money. And then they train to try and get their show and win [money]. Maybe they shouldn’t fight, and the show and win should go to the guy that made weight.
“I honestly don’t know the answer, but yeah, that whole thing, it can come across as me being a bit of sore loser, but I’m allowed to be, the guy cheated. I’m allowed to be a sore loser when the guy cheats. If the guy made weight and didn’t cheat, then that’s fine. Then shake hands, well done, you’re a better fighter tonight. But that didn’t happen. And then people are gonna argue and say, ‘well, he took the fight’. He has to take the damn fight, man! The guy hasn’t fought for 18 months, had no income. The guy has to feed his family. He’s just had a young kid. We have to take the fight. He could have come in 30 kilos overweight; we would have still had to take the fight.
I’m not gonna lie, I’ve had a couple of guys miss weight. And one of those guys – not in the UFC – jumped in their fight and won by knockout. He knocked the other guy out. My guy missed weight. I can show a video of this, my guy tried to actually celebrate that win. You can see him, he goes to celebrate, and I yell at him with a lot of profanity, I say, ‘you get out of the cage right now, you do not deserve to celebrate that win, that’s a loss as far as we’re concerned’. Because my guy cheated. So, you can’t say I’ve got double standards.
“And it just made me livid to see this guy running around the cage like he achieved something, like, the way he was carrying on. He came to shake my hand right at the end, and luckily the ref pulled him away, cause I can’t shake a guy’s hand like that. I don’t know why he’s in the UFC.
