My experience with cutting weight for MMA fights

I don't talk about it a great deal because I ended up retiring with a losing record after just 3 professional fights, but there was a time a long time ago that I was considered a up-and-coming potential for MMA. This notion was pushed forward after I won my very first fight in rather glorious fashion against a guy with much more experience than I had, and he was much more ripped and muscular than I was. Basically nobody thought I had a chance in hell and the betting odds were very much against me. I don't know if anyone actually bet on me because betting on sports was not legal back at that time where I lived, and the sports itself was of very dubious legality as well.

In my first fight I had to do something that I had never done before and it is something that almost all pro fighters do on a regular basis. They "cut weight" in order to enter a weight class where they actually weigh more than that amount and the reason why someone would do this is because of the fact that the heavier your are, the more power you are going to generate and the more damage you are going to be able to endure.

src

There are a lot of people out there that think most combat sports would be better if people just competed at what is called their "honest weight" and what that means is the weight that you would have just on a regular Wednesday, not the weight that you accomplish by strictly dieting specifically for a weigh in and also the amount of weight that you lose just a few day before a weigh in and most of this consists of simply dehydrating yourself the day off the weigh in.

These can be dangerous and there have been some cases of people actually dying because of it. My experience was one that wasn't really that bad and while I don't advise that you actually do this, I want to explain that it isn't some sort of mystical thing that only boxers or elite athletes are capable of.

src
_{Paddy is one of the more extraordinary weight cutters}

For my weight cut, I needed to be 170 lbs to qualify for the weight class. At that point in my life, a regular "honest weight" for me eating healthy but not really tracking calories as well as being normally hydrated, was something around 175 to 178 lbs. I wanted to just enter at a higher weight class but my trainer insisted that this lower weight class was the way to go because if I fought at 180, I was going to be fighting guys that were potentially up to 190 lbs at their honest weight, and I knew from sparring in my own kickboxing gym that the guys who weight 10 or 20 lbs more than I do hit a lot harder than the guys who were the same weight as me.

It does kind of seem like cheating because basically everyone loses 5-10 lbs for the sake of the weigh-in and then immediately gains a bunch of weight for the fight. Very few people actually weigh what the scale says on the day of the weigh in.

For me, losing 8 lbs wasn't really that difficult but we were also dealing with an extremely athletic version of myself that could endure a lot more punishment than my old bones can take today but here is how it went.

3 days before weigh-in I was around 177 lbs and I needed to get to 170 in 3 fucking days If I didn't make weight there was a chance that the fight could be called off but my trainer was extremely confident that losing 7 lbs in a few days was not difficult and he had 20 years of experience so I took his word for it.

In the days leading up to the weigh in my training went from weight heavy to speed and cardio oriented with a very limited amount of water allowed in my repertoire. This sounds a lot more difficult than it actually is but we used electrolytes as well so that the hydration I actually was consuming was being used more efficiently by my body.

This resulted in me losing just a couple of pounds and I was nervous before the next day because I was thinking "how the hell am I going to lose 5 lbs in just ONE DAY!?"

My trainer was not concerned. The weigh it was at 5pm the following day and he told me to not drink ANYTHING all night and the next day and to meet him at the gym at 2.

we are going to lose 5 lbs in 2 hours

So when I arrived at 2 I expected him to just be working the hell out of me and that I was in for a torturous experience but here is the crazy part, it was actually a more relaxed workout than I would normally have but there was a big difference. I was wearing a ton of clothes at the time and these clothes were intentionally mostly cotton that would absorb a great deal of my sweat.

The first part of my "workout" didn't even have me moving. I put on a ton of clothes and then got into the sauna, which was a room in the gym that I had never used before. He cranked that sonofagun up to maximum and I simply sat there sweating my ass off for 20 minutes. Then the trainer came back into the room with a change of clothes for the bottom layer, which at that point was completely soaked with my sweat. We repeated this process 3 total times and then I left the sauna and got on a treadmill.

I was not running fast at all. This was a fast walk and intermittent jogging, nothing major. I once again soaked through the bottom layer and I changed out of this again 2 more times. I received zero water for all of this.

By the time it was 4 pm I was red in the face and very tired. At this point my body wasn't producing much sweat anymore and my trainer showed no signs of stress at all when I stepped on the scale and to my surprise i weighed 168 lbs. In my mind this was nuts and I was delighted that I was going to get to drink some water.

I did not get to drink any water

I did get to take the extra clothes off and sit in front of a fan for the next 30 minutes. The trainer did allow me to swish water around in my mouth but spit it out.

He said that the scales in his gym could be off and we couldn't risk it but then a bit later we drove to the weigh in and I got on the scale and weighed in at 169 lbs. I did the whole flexing thing for the photos that were not taken and took in the cheers of no one because nobody was there except the match officials and my opponent and his trainers. He was trying to act all mean but I instead tried to kill him with kindness and said something like "good luck in the fight dude, I'm going to do my best" and "I'm really looking forward to having something to eat and drink now, what about you?" He was saying the usual tough guy stuff like "gonna sleep in you in the first round punk!" I just laughed and decided my persona was going to be the nice guy.

Anyway, you couldn't get me that bottle of water fast enough. As soon as my weight was recorded I absolutely pounded a bottle of water and then asked for another one, then I went back to the gym and trained for a few hours and just drank and drank and drank and drank. The next day at the gym I weighed in at 175 lbs. I gained 6 lbs in the night.

This is water-weight. It's not real mystery what this stuff is and every single fighter dehydrates before a weigh in. This can be very dangerous if someone needs to cut too much weight and honestly, this should be regulated or changed but it wont because everyone knows that you have a distinct advantage if you are heavier than your opponent. This is why outside of Jake Paul debacles we don't see people like Mayweather fight someone like Brock Lesnar

src

By the time the actual fight happened, me and my opponent were both noticeably bigger than the day of the weigh-in. This is not breaking the rules but honestly, it should be. I would prefer that people weigh in just before the fight and that way if they did cut like crazy, they would be too friggin exhausted to actually fight.

Mr. "gonna sleep you in the first round" got his come-uppance though as precisely the opposite happened. I'll talk more about the actual fight at another time.

What I am trying to say is that cutting weight isn't some huge mystery and it actually can be one of the easiest parts of your workout. It hurts in a different way though, that is for sure.