Watching film and reading scouting reports can help a fighter find his opponent’s weakness and assist his camp in establishing a game plan to exploit that weakness. A fighter who weighs slightly over the limit for one weight class can realistically drop a couple pounds to fight against an opponent who is smaller.
One of the major changes in regulated MMA was the introduction of weight classes at UFC 12, an event held in 1997. Now, fighters know everything, or at least have the capacity to learn any style of fighting. Unlike the early days of UFC, smaller fighters don’t have the potential advantage of knowing a discipline their opponent might not know. “Any organ that is predominantly muscular, including the heart, can be affected by this drastic weight loss,” Hadley said. Rita Hadley, Bariatric Surgeon at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, Az. A recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that weight-cutting MMA fighters who relied on extreme dehydration measures had significant impaired strength and cognitive function which did not fully return prior to competition.Īlthough losing fat is a good thing, losing too much muscle can be very dangerous, said Dr. “It’s just part of the process.”Ī study by Australia’s Edith Cowan University published in February found MMA athletes lose an average of 11.5 percent of their body weight in the lead-up to a fight, often rapidly, compared to an average of about six percent in other combat sports. “The weight cut sucks 100 percent of the time,” said Kyle Stewart, a 29-year-old MMA fighter out of Tempe, Az. A martial art called Brazilian jiu jitsu.įast-forward to 2018 and specialization doesn’t exist anymore.
A relatively unassuming 180-pound man named Royce Gracie won the first UFC tournament through skill, tenacity and a martial art unknown by any of the other fighters. Weight didn’t matter as much as knowing what your opponent didn’t know. A 400-pound man could, and did, fight a 220-pound competitor. Fighters were matched up against each other regardless of weight. The Ultimate Fighting Championship first came into the public consciousness late in 1993. Kicking exercises are commonplace at Arizona Combat Sports in Tempe, but competitors in sports such as mixed martial arts often are required to do much more, including dropping a large amount of weight before a bout.
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