With weight cutting issues in the spotlight the last couple of weeks — starting at UFC 177 when Henry Cejudo and Renan Barao both dropped out of their fights in Sacramento after bad cuts, and this week with Charles Oliveira coming in over — solutions are being kicked around.One person who has thought about all the inherent problems with weight cutting over the years is Big John McCarthy, the longtime official going back to the UFC’s unruly early days. McCarthy was in Sacramento when Barao passed out and hit his head during his weight cut.
Barao has struggled making the 135-pound maximum for the last couple of years, and he says that sort of extreme cutting can leave a permanent mark.McCarthy appeared on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour and talked about the increasingly more problematic routine of fighters cutting so much weight. He told Ariel Helwani that it starts having awareness of the damage a fighter is causing himself.I don’t think fighters are truly educated as to exactly what they are doing to themselves, and I mean doing to themselves over the long term of their life, he said.
You know, the weight thing is a huge problem in everything that it’s involved in, be it wrestling or MMA — any time someone is losing the weight that some of these guys do, draining their body of fluids, the electrolytes, it’s a problem for everybody involved. Not just the fighter, but the promoter and the promotion itself because you have situations where fighters don’t make weight. You also have situations where fighters are putting themselves at risk in going into that contest. Because they’re doing everything in their power to cheat.
John McCarthy: 'Fighters aren't truly educated in what they're doing to themselves' during weight cuts
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