Why the UFC Should Have More Weight Classes

 There should be more weight classes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A weight class is a division of weight that a fighter must be at or under in order to fight in his or her desired class. According to the ufc.com, “Failure to reach the required weight results in either the athlete forfeiting a percentage of their fight purse to their opponent, an agreement bet
ween the two athletes to compete at a non-weight class specific weight (catchweight) or having the fight canceled altogether.”(UFC.com, 2023). Currently, there are 12 different weight classes spanning from straw weight at 115 pounds to heavy weight which is 265 pounds. These weight classes are to ensure fair fights. This is to prevent larger opponents dominating smaller ones. 

A lot of fighters cut weight in order to make these weight classes. According to an article titled Weight Loss and Competition Weight in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Athletes, “However, weight cutting is a more prevalent aspect in MMA than many other combat and grappling sports, as research demonstrates over 90% of MMA athletes use rapid weight loss techniques” (Peacock, French, Sanders, Ricci, Stull, Antonio, 2022). Cutting massive amounts of weight can be detrimental to the body.

 One common method of cutting weight is water depletion. This is the act of dehydrating oneself to cut down on as much water weight as possible.  Dehydration can lead to kidney failure. According to “Weight Cutting and Your Kidneys” by Dr. Rosi Sexton, “When an athlete becomes dehydrated the blood flow to the kidney drops. Take this too far and the kidneys may stop functioning or become damaged, and acute kidney injury (also known as “acute renal failure”) can set in. (Sexton, 2018) Sexton also says it can cause “renal failure include nausea, shortness of breath, drowsiness, confusion, pain in the back and chest pain.”(Sexton, 2018). Eventually, if someone’s body is dehydrated enough, it can lead to death. According to Jamie Harken, author of Weight Cutting: The Bad, The Ugly, And The Five Feasible Fixes, “Yang Jian Bing, a ONE Championship fighter, died due to weight-cutting complications at 21 years of age.”(Harken, 2022).

Despite these issues, there are those who believe we shouldn’t have more weight classes. People believe that despite adding more weight classes, major cutting will still occur. This is because fighters will want to break into smaller weight classes to fight smaller opponents. These smaller opponents will be at a disadvantage.

Another problem that more weight classes will cause is that it will decrease the depth of competition. If an athlete does not have an elite set of skills, he can easily go up or down a weight class and dominate that new class. In an article titled “Why More Weight Classes In MMA Will Cause More Problems” from mmachannel.com, “The imbalance between the new and current divisions will negatively affect the overall depth of talent and we will see fighters constantly switching between the divisions.”(mmachannel.com, 2023).

A third and final issue is that the UFC would become oversaturated. More weight classes means more fights. Though more fights seem nice, it would compromise the quality of each event. From an economic standpoint, it would be a bad idea. Mmachannel.com says “ In pure economic terms, this will ultimately lead to an economic surplus in which the supply of the UFC events is much higher than the public demands.”(mmachannel.com, 2023) . 

Despite these issues that come with more weight classes, athlete safety comes first and adding more weight classes would ensure that athletes do not need to drastically cut body weight and dehydrate themselves.

photo from mmahive.com

https://mmachannel.com/why-more-weight-classes-in-mma-will-cause-more-problems/

https://www.mmanews.com/features/weight-cutting-mma