Kevin Lee: Everyone is waiting for someone to die from weight cutting

Kevin Lee appeared recently on Luke Thomas’s The MMA Hour, and discussed the most dangerous fixable issue in mixed martial arts.

Everybody knows that this weight-cutting thing is a problem, but nobody is coming up with no f***ing solutions, said Lee, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. Everybody is kind of waiting for somebody to die. And I don’t feel like that’s the right thing to do. I think you have to take at least one step in the right direction and then just see how it goes. There’s really no downside to it.

Lee noted that under the direction of executive director Andy Foster, the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) has taken a number of steps to combat the issue. One of the improvements is an increase in the number of weight divisions in the UFC, which was approved last year by the Association of Boxing Commissions. ABC President Mike Mazzulli is another figure fighting the problem, and, for example, has long recognized additional weight divisions at Mohegan Sun.

The problem is that the UFC has not.

Lee fights at 155, and cuts down from around 178. A move up for him would mean welterweight or 170, where fighters are dropped down from 190 or even 200 or even more. Lee reasonably wants to fight at Super Lightweight, or 165, but the UFC won’t recognize it.

Most people, especially 155ers that I talk to, they all want it, he said. We all are about the same size. A lot of these [lightweights] are [185, 190]. … We’re all doing the same thing to compete against each other. It doesn’t make sense. If we can make it a little bit safer and we can make it a little bit more fair, that’s all I’m calling for. Just a fair, even playing field for me to go out there and compete with somebody without having to kill myself to do it.

There’s so many guys, there’s so much talent. The talent is there. It’s the same thing they said about adding 125 for the women. Yeah, it’s gonna take some time to cultivate that, but I think it’s gonna even be easier, because you have so many guys in between these weight classes right now that could fill that up. Where it’s at is the talent is always gonna show up.

That’s what it’s gonna take, said Lee. It’s unfortunate. And people kind of gloss over it, too. Uriah Hall, who I train with, the man had a seizure cutting weight for fights. It kind of gets swept under the rug. And it kind of goes, ‘Oh, he was doing his own thing.’ … The man had a seizure getting ready for a fight. That’s not a joke. It’s more serious than I think people realize. And it’s my health on the line, too, along with it. If all I gotta do is just step up and talk about it and try and make some change happen, then that’s what I’m gonna do. But the rest of these mother f***ers, they’re too scared. They won’t do it, because they don’t want to step up and say what they really feel.

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