Hall details dreadful weight cut
Uriah Hall: “The next thing I know the EMT was there. I was throwing punches at them. People were holding me down. “
Vitor Belfort was to have had his final fight vs. Uriah Hall at UFC Fight Night 124 on January 14 in St. Louis. However, the fight was canceled after Hall collapsed on the way to weigh-ins, and was hospitalized for two days. The fighter appeared recently on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, and described what happened.
The calamity had several causes. First is the culture of extreme weight cutting in MMA, the worst safety measure in all of sports. And Hall’s body did not respond well to the pescetarian diet he adopted, at points being unable to digest food. And he overtrained. And the suicide of his coach Robert Follis landed extremely hard.
I was a wreck. I really was,” said Hall, as transcribed by Jeff Cain for MMA Weekly/Yahoo Sports. “I was calling my mom almost every night and my sister. I was kind of just crying. I can’t believe I got to that point.”
A couple of days before I flew out to St. Louis … my body went weird, like I couldn’t digest food again and I was having problems digesting food. You’ve got to intake a lot of water and my body just wasn’t getting rid of it. Of course, I was like screw it. I’m going to do it anyway. I don’t have any sick days. I don’t complain.”
I was like 208 when I got there. Normally for me, fight week, I’m always like 199 or 198. I was heavy already and then I got up to 215, and I was like, s***, this water isn’t coming out of my body. What’s going on? I went into overdrive. I’m working twice as hard now. I started cutting weight from 206, and I’ve never cut from 206 before.”
Within that timeframe, within 24 hours, I must have lost 20-something pounds. I got to 187 and I remember sitting in the tub and saying I’m done. If I go any further than this my body is going to shut down. But as a warrior and that mentality, I was like f*** it. I don’t want to pay that fine. I’m going to make weight. I’m disciplined. So I pushed my body to that brink and I made that 185.something. They had to kind of hold on to me and pick me up. I’m walking to the elevator. They’re still holding me. Once I got to the elevator, I couldn’t stand anymore and I just passed out.”
In that dramatic moment when I passed out, I kept waking up. As much as I was waking up, I was in and out of consciousness. I did know what was happening, but I couldn’t control it. I wake up and I was in the elevator. I woke up and I was on the floor. I think they were trying to revive me or whatever and I was punching. I kept swinging because I couldn’t control my body.”
I was just swinging. I was trying to fight out of it. The next thing I know the EMT was there. I was throwing punches at them. People were holding me down. I was asking for water. They put me on a stretcher. I woke up again. They were trying to find a vein. They couldn’t find a vein, so they kept sticking me over and over. I felt pain and I just kept swinging again. They were like, ‘Hold him down. Hold him down.’ I passed out and woke up in the hospital.
Later on, I kind of came to, slowly. I just came back to my senses, but it was one of the most horrific experiences I’ve ever went through.
Weight divisions are supposed to make MMA safer but because the process is grossly mismanaged, it’s the most dangerous solvable issue in the sport. If Hall had died, the solution would be rapidly implemented. Because he didn’t, the 10 Point Plan devised by California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster is being adopted only incrementally. It works. The ABC medical committee supports it. The ABC has adopted it. The UFC supports it and will continue to adopt further parts of it. The sport has two choices – adopt a sane approach to weight cutting now, or wait until someone famous dies and then do it. In the mean time, all the weight cutting is causing tremendous organ damage, and it’s all for nothing.