John McCarthy makes the case for three more men’s divisions

The Unified Rules of mixed martial arts call for ten weight divisions

Strawweight 115 lb (52.2 kg)
Flyweight 125 lb (56.7 kg)
Bantamweight 135 lb (61.2 kg)
Featherweight 145 lb (65.8 kg)
Lightweight 155 lb (70.3 kg)
Welterweight 170 lb (77.1 kg)
Middleweight 185 lb (83.9 kg)
Light Heavyweight 205 lb (93.0 kg)
Heavyweight 265 lb (120.2 kg)
Super Heavyweight 266+

Athletic commissions and promotions generally allow a 1 lb grace limit for non-title fights, but require both fighters to hit the mark for title fights.

Greco and Freestyle wrestling have eight weight divisions for men, and six at the Olympics. Judo has eight weight classes. Olympic amateur boxing has ten weight classes. IBJJF has nine.

By contrast, professional boxing has 12 weight division … at 147 and under. There are another six above 147.

During an appearance on MMAjunkie Radio, the dean of MMA referees, ‘Big’ John McCarthy, said he would like to see three more divisions for mixed martial arts. He believes it will create a healthier environment for fighters, with less extreme weight cutting, and safer fights.

It cracks me up how people can look and sit there and say, ‘You can’t have a 135-pound guy fight an 185-pound guy. That’s 50 pounds. That’s crazy. You can’t do that. That’s ridiculous,’ said McCarthy, as transcribed by MMAjunkie. There is no difference between that happening at 135 and 185 and a guy that is 215 fighting a 265-pound guy. It’s the same. Because they’re bigger, it’s like, ‘Oh it’s OK.’ No, it’s not. It’s the exact same thing that is going on, and the bigger guy has this bigger advantage, and we need to do things to protect fighters.

What was being proposed is getting rid of the 170-pound weight class, putting in a 165 and 175 so we have added one weight class. We have a big gap between 185 and 205, so we’re going to put one between – 195. So there’s a second added weight class.

And then the one that most promoters, especially [UFC President Dana White], are not going to like, is the one that I think is the most important. We need to put in a cruiserweight, something between that 205 to about 225. Some say 230.

There’s no professional sport that says, ‘We’re going to starve and dehydrate your athletes and expect them to perform.’ That’s only in MMA and some with boxing. Look at professional football, baseball, basketball – they’re all having all these chefs to feed their athletes so they get optimum performance. But we’re starving and dehydrating (MMA fighters).

We know through studies that having more time allows the brain to absolutely come back and rehydrate and be safer for the fighters in that position. So the next step is, we do need to start bringing in different weight classes.

And that’s part of the whole process. There’s a multistep process in this entire weight-cutting situation. Right now we’ve only done one step. We need to do about three or four to make it to where it’s going to be effective to everyone.

John McCarthy is one of the single most knowledgeable figure in the sport, perhaps the most. However, and unfortunately, given the present culture of extreme weight cutting in mixed martial arts, it is not certain that adding weight classes would make fighters cut less. It could make them cut more.

For example, if a fighter walks around at 200, he currently cuts to 185. But if there was a 180-pound division, he might seek to cut the additional five pounds, too.

Further, if there was a 225 or 230-pound cruiserweight cut off, a lot of hard hit heavyweights would start cutting as well.

Here is the UFC top 16 heavyweights. The ones who could easily cut to 230 (cut of 15 pounds or less) are in bold.
Champion: Stipe Miocic (241)
1 Fabricio Werdum (238)
2 Cain Velasquez (240)
3 Alistair Overeem (244)
4 Junior Dos Santos (238)
5 Ben Rothwell (265)
6 Andrei Arlovski (240)

7 Travis Browne (254)
8 Mark Hunt (265)
9 Josh Barnett (261)
10 Derrick Lewis (264)
11 Roy Nelson (246)
12 Ruslan Magomedov (236)
13 Stefan Struve (265)
14 Francis Ngannou (259)
15 Antonio Silva (262)

You can see at a glance that the fighters who could cut to 230 do not in fact appear to be disadvantaged – they are the best five fighters in the world, and six out of the top 7. And now they would be cutting. Further, by contrast, only one of the bottom nine in the top 16 would be easily cutting.

So now a situation is created where the hardest hitting fighters the sport are all cutting, with all the attendant potential safety issues.

McCarthy is absolutely correct that you cannot have a fighter at 185 fighting one at 135. However, the relative weight does matter. A 100-pound fighter fighting a 150-pound fighter is not nearly as disadvantaged as say a 230-pound fighter fighting a 280-pound fighter. Statistical analyses of fight outcomes have backed this up clearly.

The Unified Rules of mixed martial arts are fragile, and held in place by good will and cooperation. Changes need to be implemented gradually, with the cooperation of the major stakeholders, or the structure will be weakened, rather than strengthened.