WEIGH-IN ISSUE GAINING TRACTION?

Wolfgangsta wrote:

Tobe? Who and how did marble pwn anyone? This was typical wolf-soul-reapage. All anyone did was post the stupidest comparison known to human beings, and stats that offer no scientific data at all. His premise is weight cutting sucks, if that is his premise, ban weight cutting, not shorten the hydration window. He, you, and anyone else who believes people will magically stop cutting weight with a shorter hydration window are completely delusional.

Question for you Wolf...what if any is your personal background in contact sports? I ask this because I get the feeling that you have participated in at least one of the MMA type disciplines. If so, what has been your experience as far as weigh ins. I boxed and wrestled for years & dabbled in martial arts for a short time also. Back in the day, we weighed in the morning of a boxing match. For duel meet wrestling matches weigh in was about 2 hours before the match. For tournament wrestling, weigh in was early the morning of the first round & 2nd day we were allowed 2 lbs. We never even considered the weigh in times to be an issue. I recall quite a few times that I was maybe a pound to 1 1/2 pounds over at weigh in. They gave us until 30 minutes before match time to make the weight. Did a lot of sweating & spitting to drop that last pound or so. Still, we considered it not just part of the game, but our responsibility to make weight. By giving fighters that are dropping drastic weight 36 hours to rehydrate, it's only natural that their bodies are going to hang on to everything that's put in it during those 36 hours. Same day weigh ins will force some fighters to move to a higher weight class or be smarter with how they do it. It would level the playing field enough to prevent some serious disparity in actual fight night weights.

I've only ever done boxing training, no fights so never cut weight. It's hard to judge anything from a medical perspective when your body has no ability to sense your brain though. I'm just working with common sense and the prevailing medical opinion here.

I get what you're saying about the sizes of the fighters being a concern, but nothing I've said speaks to that point. I don't think a few pounds size difference is as big of a danger in pounds per square inch force to the head, as a dehydrated lining would be. But that is purely conjecture on my part.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

I don't think a few pounds size difference is as big of a danger in pounds per square inch force to the head, as a dehydrated lining would be. But that is purely conjecture on my part.

A few pounds size difference is not as big a danger as fighters competing drained and fatigued. However, the point that everyone is trying to explain is that fighters do not need to dehydrate themselves to compete. I agree that many might try and do so and it could create initial problems, but in the long run having fighters on an even playing field weight-wise who do not dehydrate themselves is the safest option of all.

Also, we are talking about more than a few pounds size difference. Fight night disparities in weight have been as drastic as 10-15lbs. That is significant enough to be a serious health concern for the smaller fighter. These huge disparities are a growing trend.

Lastly, from a fan perspective, having fighters in their actual weight classes on fight night will improve the quality of the sport. Skill and natural ability will be more on display as opposed to a fighter's ability to pack on weight.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

I've only ever done boxing training, no fights so never cut weight. It's hard to judge anything from a medical perspective when your body has no ability to sense your brain though. I'm just working with common sense and the prevailing medical opinion here.

I get what you're saying about the sizes of the fighters being a concern, but nothing I've said speaks to that point. I don't think a few pounds size difference is as big of a danger in pounds per square inch force to the head, as a dehydrated lining would be. But that is purely conjecture on my part.

I'd suspect you are right about that. But, as Gumby correctly notes, most of us deem to believe that's not really the choice in front of us. Even if it were, the problem becomes we are not talking "a few pounds." In the nearly catastrophic Gatti-Gamache fight the difference was as much as two divisions. In the Rios-Peterson fight Rios fought around 150 and Peterson around 139. For fighters believed to have approximately the same skill levels? That is an awfully big difference.

The thing is when they changed the rule about day before weigh ins, that in itself is what created the weight disparity at fight times. Since there's no real evidence to support the "safety" factor, it is within the commissions realms to change it back.