Lithuania’a women’s bantamweight Julija Stoliarenko stepped on the scales at the UFC on ESPN 21 weigh-ins, wobbled, stumbled, and then crashed backwards into the curtain.
https://twitter.com/TheSchmo312/status/1372943496051519490
She was given a few minutes to recover, and then made weight successfully. Then she fainted again and was stretchered to the hospital. The fight vs. Julia Avila was canceled.
https://twitter.com/TheSchmo312/status/1372944761103872001
What you see above is the inevitable byproduct of irrationality normalized. In what other sport do you reduce yourself to the point you cannot walk, just one day before you have to reach the highest performance level imaginable? Further, MMA is a hurting game, where you are trying to traumatize your opponent’s brain, and weight cutting causes the brain to shrink, so it no longer sits snugly inside the cranium, and is thus subject to more trauma.
Stoliarenko explained what happened from the fighter’s perspective. It wasn’t that she is enmeshed in an irrational system, it was simply that the timing of her cut was off.
“Hello everyone, began Stoliarenko, on her social network. So, I wanted to explain the situation that happened today on the scales during weight-ins at the UFC. So, the problem wasn’t my weight cut, and so on … It was actually one of my easiest weight cuts in my career, and weight was dropping too fast. The main issue I think was that I made weight too early. Basically, the weigh-ins start at 9:00 a.m., and I was already on weight at 5:00 a.m. It was just too long of a time on weight. As everybody knows when you cut weight, you cannot be on this weight for too long because you’re already on the limit of your dehydration and so on. That was an issue why it all happened.
“I’m so upset because right now I’m feeling great. I feel ready for a fight. My body feels great. I’m still in a good shape. I know that I can fight and so on. It just happened that the athletic commission did not clear me for a fight, because we are taking care of the fighters. That situation looked terrible. The UFC also takes care of the fighters. I just want to say sorry to the UFC first of all. and the most sorry to Avila. I still hope that maybe in the future we are going to meet up. Gosh, I was so ready for that fight.”
Stoliarenko is an admirable warrior. The weigh-ins process, on the other hand, is deplorable. Extreme weight cutting is the most dangerous regulatory issue in mixed martial arts, which is already an inherently dangerous sport.
Dehydration is medically as mild, moderate, or severe depending on the percentage of body weight lost. Mild dehydration is said to be present with fluid losses of 5-7%. Moderate dehydration is 8% to 10-11%. Severe dehydration is 11-12% or more of body weight; it requires immediate medical care. Death occurs at a loss of between 15% and 25% of the body water.
Andy Foster, executive director of the California State Athletic Commission, has taken the lead in combatting the practice. He has been gathering data since 2019, and on one study, 10% (or 28 out of 285) of MMA fights in California saw one or both fighters weighing over 15% above the contracted weight on fight day. By contrast, in boxing the rate was just 1.6% (or 9 out of 570).
To give a single example from MMA, this would be a bantamweight (136 non-title limit) weighing more than 155.2 on fight day, or two divisions up. Weight divisions are implemented for fighter health and safety, yet in this pursuit of safety a significant percentage of fighters are enduring a potentially fatal level of fluid loss.
Foster has instituted a new rule that cancels a fight if on fight day a competitor weighed more than 15% over the contracted fight weight. Trainers, promoters, matchmakers, and managers, will be responsible for making sure fighters comply with the new rule.
There is the potential now that fighters will not fully rehydrate before a fight, but Foster explained that the aim is to get promoters to match fighters at closer to their natural weight. The alternative for promoters is seeing a bout canceled.
The only way we can get there is out of fear of a cancellation, said Foster in 2019 to Marc Raimondi for ESPN. I suspect the matchmakers will probably just move the fights up a little bit if they see weights increase just to prevent risks to their promotions.
Foster would also like promoters to hold more catchweight fights. This is another sensible step, as fans want to watch good fights, not watch fights at any given weight division.
This is a fixable issue, said Foster. Pretending like we’re bound to these weight like they’re set in stone and fighters can’t move up, frankly it’s not healthy.
Nevada is a leading commission, and needs to adopt Foster’s rational approach to weight cutting. The alternative is doing so after a prominent fighter dies. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and right now, the Nevada Athletic Commission is part of the problem, as you can see.
