Louis Smolka has a proposal about fighters who miss weight
Louis Smolka: ���If you weigh them again at the end of the weigh-in period, you’ll have a more accurate weight discrepancy, so you’ll be able to gauge [whether to take the fight] better.”
The culture of extreme weight cutting is the largest solvable issue in mixed martial arts. The UFC’s Hawaiian bantamweight Louis Smolka has some suggestions to correct it.
The whole idea behind MMA is it’s supposed to be a fair fight, and that’s why there’s weight classes, so guys (that are) different sizes aren’t fighting each other, said Smolka to Nick Baldwin for Bloody Elbow. Guys missing weight, it takes away from it. It’s not a fair fight anymore. It’s like a street fight. I know four or five pounds doesn’t seem like a lot, but that’s like four percent of my body weight. It’s a large amount. On a light heavyweight, that’s like eight to 10 pounds.
Smolka suggests that fighters who fail to make weight should not be allowed to rehydrate until the early weigh-ins are over. As it is, a fighter can miss early and start to rehydrate while the responsible fighter may need until the end of the period to make weight and finally rehydrate. If that’s too dangerous, then Smolka would like see the fighter weighed on at the end of the early weigh-in period, and base the fine off of that.
He might’ve showed up at the beginning at 129, but by the end of those two hours, what if he was already 133, 134, because he had already started drinking? said Smolka. I want to negotiate his purse dedication off that, because 129 is kind of like a deflated number.
If guys do miss weight, we should know how much weight they’re gaining back quickly, Smolka said. If you weigh them again at the end of the weigh-in period, you’ll have a more accurate weight discrepancy, so you’ll be able to gauge [whether to take the fight] better.
Executive director of the California State Athletic Commission Andy Foster has taken the leading role in addressing the issue of weight cutting, and respectfully welcomes Smolka’s input, but says there are prohibitive health and safety considerations around not allowing a fighter to rehydrate. Instead, Foster would like to see the fine raised from the current 20%.
It’s good to have ideas. I applaud his idea, said Foster. I don’t want to seem disrespectful. He’s looking at it a little differently than I’m looking at it — he’s looking at it from a competitor’s standpoint, and I’m looking at it more from a what’s-good-for-the-whole-sport standpoint.
If an MMA fighter has missed weight, the most obvious reason was that despite their best effort, they’re dehydrated incredibly bad. If they’ve missed weight, they most likely need to drink water. That’s the most likely scenario.”