It's unfortunately not uncommon for an MMA card to feature a fighter who missed weight for their bout. UFC Rio, however, presented us with a truly ridiculous case.
The opening bout of the evening saw Luan Lacerda taking on Saimon Oliveira -- a fighter who missed weight by eight pounds. The bout ended up contested at 144 pounds, making it more like a featherweight contest than a bantamweight one. Oliveira also had to weigh in under a certain amount for the fight to even go on.
Lacerda won the fight anyway, avoiding the controversial idea of a fighter missing weight on purpose to get an advantage in the fight -- as well as fighter pay issues in circumstances such as these. Oliveira, in fact, looked terrible and drained, and his UFC future is probably in doubt.
But that doesn't get us away from the debate over how weight misses in MMA should be handled. Oliveira ended up forfeiting 50 percent of his fight purse, which means he didn't make a lot of money for this loss. Traditionally, commissions penalize MMA fighters 20-30 percent of their purse for such weight misses, so this kind of fine is a good statement.
Perhaps that could set a precedent for other potential penalties that could be "perfect" solutions for these kinds of issues.
Percentage Increase For Fines With Each Weight Miss
This idea is based off of the bigger fines for bigger weight misses in MMA -- and the extreme case in the case of Oliveira from UFC Rio.
Essentially, in this scenario, a second (or later) weight miss after an initial one results in an increased set minimum of fine for the fighter that misses weight. While, as discussed, most circumstances see an MMA fighter get fined a minimum of 20 percent of their fight purse for a weight miss, a second weight miss would mean the fighter's minimum fine gets increased to 25 percent.
Let's use Charles Oliveira as an example. The weight miss for his 2012 bout with Cub Swanson would have resulted in the normal 20 percent purse fine. But his second weight miss, which came against Jeremy Stephens, would see a minimum of a 25 percent purse fine with this rule, and a minimum 30 percent for his weight miss against Myles Jury. That said, an extreme case -- such as Oliveira's 10-pound miss against Ricardo Lamas -- could result in a percentage fine that is more than the minimum.
This rule can also apply to just a certain timespan, such as 12-18 months. In a case like this, Charles Oliveira's weight miss against Stephens would still just be a 20 percent minimum, since it came two years after the Swanson fight. But the weight miss against Jury would see the bump up in minimum since it came a year later.
Forcing Fighters To Move Up After Two Weight Misses
If weight cutting isn't going to go away in this sport, since MMA fighters and their teams love to have the size advantage in a fight, then perhaps we need to more strictly come down on fighters who can't keep up on the weight cutting responsibility to maintain such advantages.
In this circumstance, a second weight miss results in the fighter being mandated to move up in weight class. There are no exceptions. Whether it's a fighter who is fighting on the undercard, or a fighter who was nearing a title shot in a weight class, a second weight miss means their run in that division is over. They must move up in weight or they will not be permitted a license to fight.
It sounds harsh. But the intention is to fight back against the harm done to one's body during a weight cut -- and to fight back against a fighter who might willingly miss on purpose (like Yana Santos accused Macy Chiasson of doing recently). The California State Athletic Commission, in fact, has rules in place that can force fighters to move up depending on how much weight they are cutting and rehydrating to, or fight cancelations depending on the extremity of an MMA fighter's weight miss.
But with this case, it's not just fighters and state athletic commissions who have to take responsibility, it would also be on the promotions to be required to follow such measures.
Image: UFC/FacebookImage: UFC/Facebook
Automatic One-Point Deduction On The Scorecards
This is perhaps the harshest of all circumstances, but I believe it is one that might be necessary to get improvements moving -- and it is the one I most support.
In this circumstance, a fighter who misses weight is brought to the center of the cage right away and issued a one-point deduction immediately as the fight starts. This means that this fighter can only earn a maximum of nine points for the opening round and essentially must sweep three rounds on two judges' scorecards to get a decision win. Losing a round would mean a fight that goes to the scorecards sees that fighter only able to earn a draw at best.
The PFL did something like this when using its regular season-playoff format. A fighter who missed weight lost one point in the standings, and that later saw a change where that fighter was unable to earn any points in the standings. There was also the controversial losing one point implementation in PFL Europe's tournament format. Regardless of what you think of the PFL's usage of these created ideas, I think they were getting somewhere with how hard you need to come down on fighters for this circumstance.
Making weight is a matter of professionalism. And if we can't get rid of it in MMA, then we have to come down harshly on it for the respect of those fighters who are responsible with their weight cutting and for those MMA fighters who hold making weight in necessary regard.
Who knows if any of these ideas actually get implemented in the future? But hopefully we as an MMA community can discuss these ideas to bring about necessary change for the sake of the fighters and the sport as a whole.
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