Conor McGregor calls for more weight divisions

The culture of extreme weight cutting has killed multiple fighters and will kill more until it’s brought under control. Further, it’s causing untold long-term damage to fighter’s health. California State Athletic Commission Executive Director Andy Foster has a 10-point plan to stop it. One of the changes is the addition of weight classes at 165, 175, 195 and 225 pounds.

There have been repeated calls to make Nate Diaz vs. Dustin Poirier at UFC 230 on November 3 for a new 165 pound championship. However, during a recent interview with Brett Okamoto, UFC president Dana White categorically shut it down.

It’s all just talk, I never even considered it,” said White, as transcribed by Mookie Alexander for BE. “First of all, you make 165-pounds, you’re gonna start pulling people from the 170-pound division. And you’re going to see a lot of people from 170 and 155 that couldn’t win a title jumping to 165 to try to fight for a title there. It just doesn’t make sense. We’ve always kept things simple. One of the things about boxing is you used to have junior middleweight, super-middleweight, and all these different weights, and it was hard to follow. You didn’t really know who was the champion, and this is pretty simple and easy to follow. We have enough weight classes.

The issue with boxing is not so much the proliferation of weight divisions, as it is the proliferation of sanctioning bodies, and the proliferation of titles within the sanctioning body. The UFC has nine weight divisions while boxing has 17. The central problem is that boxing sanctioning bodies only get paid for title fights, and people like money, so they make up a lot of titles. The WBA recognizes super, undisputed, unified, regular, and interim world champions. There were recently 38 WBA world champs, in the 17 weight divisions. And that’s just the WBA; there is also the WBC, IBF, WBO, IBO, WBF, and many more.

Further, if multiple belts are confusing, then the UFC should not be doing interim belts. It’s widely reported that Conor McGregor never defended a belt. But he did. Notorious won the interim featherweight championship vs. Chad Mendes, and then unified the belts with the Aldo KO.

The main event at UFC 230 is now going to be Valentina Shevchenko vs. Sijara Eubanks. Is that more compelling than Diaz vs. Poirier for the Super Lightweight belt?

I think Diaz-Poirier should be main event personally, said McGregor to Karyn Bryant, as transcribed by Tristen Critchfield for Sherdog. But it’s great for the women, it gives them more opportunity. If it’s the belt that they are doing this for, then why not add more divisions?

I’ve got that trilogy with Diaz. I will give that man that rematch. He gave me a rematch. I’ll give him a rematch. [It would be at] 155 I’d imagine. We’ll see because maybe we could spearhead a 165-pound division. I do believe we should go 145, 155, 165, 175, 185…even 195. So why not? They’re stripping people left and right. I only walked out of the cage, they didn’t even offer me a fight and I was getting stripped… Stick in more weight divisions, more champions, why not? If that’s what you’re doing anyway. I believe maybe me and Diaz could do the trilogy at 165. Who knows? As of now it’ll be a 155er.

https://twitter.com/UFCONFOX/status/1047674401657765893

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