Kevin Lee on weight cutting issues in MMA: “Everybody is kinda waiting on somebody to die”
In mixed martial arts, there are a lot of different ways to prepare for a fight, from the actual training camp, to your dieting, but one of the most important yet dreaded ways MMA fighters get ready for battle inside the cage is the weight cut.
Whether it’s cutting the weight leading up to weigh-ins the previous weeks, or making the weight to meet the required weight limit in order to actually fight on Saturday night, weight cutting is the most critical part of any professional fighters preparation, but at the same time incredibly dangerous as well.
When you look at the UFC, and how fighters organize their weight cutting today compared to how it use to be before, it has caused a serious problem with their fighters, particularly the more larger ones at that.
Lately we’ve seen certain fighters in the UFC who are a lot larger for their current weight class or miss weight due to having to go through an extreme cut. This has led to lack of stamina or adrenaline dumps in fights due to in most cases severe dehydration.
One of the fighters that has taken the most issue with this, is current UFC lightweight contender “The Motown Phenom” Kevin Lee.
Lee has spoke out about this problem for the longest, expressing that the procedure needs a massive makeover as soon as possible, but believes no one is putting forth enough effort to get it resolved, and is his mind, seem like we’re just literally waiting somebody to die as a result.
“Everybody knows that this weight-cutting thing is a problem, but nobody is coming up with no f*cking solutions,” Lee said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour (transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting).
“Everybody is kind of waiting for somebody to die. And I don’t feel like that’s the right thing to do. I think you have to take at least one step in the right direction and then just see how it goes. There’s really no downside to it.”
Lee has suggested a solution for this, which is for the UFC to create other new weight classes.
In particular, Lee would like to see the welterweight division bumped up from 170 to 175 pounds, an possibly create a 165 pound division in between the new 175 pound division and the original 155 pound weight class.
“Most people, especially 155ers that I talk to, they all want it,” he said. “We all are about the same size. A lot of these [lightweights] are [185, 190]. … We’re all doing the same thing to compete against each other. It doesn’t make sense. If we can make it a little bit safer and we can make it a little bit more fair, that’s all I’m calling for [a 165-pound weight class]. Just a fair, even playing field for me to go out there and compete with somebody without having to kill myself to do it.”
“There’s so many guys, there’s so much talent [in the lightweight and welterweight divisions],” Lee said. “The talent is there. It’s the same thing they said about adding 125 for the women. Yeah, it’s gonna take some time to cultivate that, but I think it’s gonna even be easier, because you have so many guys in between these weight classes right now that could fill that up. Where it’s at is the talent is always gonna show up.”
Do you agree with Kevin Lee’s views on weight cutting in MMA?
Do you agree that the welterweight division should be moved 175 pounds? How about a new 165 pound division should be created as well?
