Opinion: An MMA Promoter’s Dilemma

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

The ordering process for Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-views has changed: UFC 248 is only available on ESPN+ in the U.S.

* * *
The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s latest journey to Norfolk, Virginia, in some ways was a night of firsts. It was the first time the promotion had ever held an event on the infamous Leap Day, as Feb. 29 had until this year never fallen on a Saturday since the promotion’s inception. It was the first time that flyweights had headlined a UFC event since Sergio Pettis faced Brandon Moreno in August 2017, back when many thought the division’s days were numbered.

It was also an opportunity for Joseph Benavidez to become the first promotional champion at age 35 or older to win a belt in a weight class below middleweight and finally become a titleholder after three previous attempts in World Extreme Cagefighting and the UFC. Benavidez fell short in that quest, instead making it the first time in the modern era that an undisputed championship remained vacant after a decisive title fight. Why? Because Deiveson Figueiredo missed weight.

Unfortunately, fighters missing weight is still a common occurrence in MMA. While more prevalent on the regional circuit—especially in amateur bouts—major promotions such as the UFC are still struggling to deal with the issue, with more athletes in the organization missing weight in 2019 than any year prior. In terms of a fighter missing the mark on the scale for a title fight, the last time that happened in the UFC was at UFC 225 in 2018, when Yoel Romero missed the 185-pound limit against Robert Whittaker before their battle for the company’s middleweight strap. Romero had previously missed weight for an interim middleweight title fight against Luke Rockhold at UFC 221, and although “The Soldier of God” is scheduled to take on Israel Adesanya for another crack at the middleweight belt at UFC 248 this Saturday in Las Vegas, there are concerns he may once again weigh in over the limit for a championship bout.

While UFC President Dana White has been more forgiving of Romero’s missteps on the scale in comparison to Figueredo’s unprofessionalism, both instances highlight a dilemma for any MMA promotion: How do you handle fighters missing weight when the division’s highest prize is on the line?

Historically, the answer has been to do what is needed to keep the title bout intact. It’s one thing to cancel or move fights that aren’t for a championship, but studies have shown that title fights can make a big difference in drawing power for the variable casual audience. This is especially true in the case of headliners, as companies have canceled entire cards when a particular championship bout could not come to fruition and there was not enough star power to make up the slack. Whether a promotion uses the UFC model of allowing the fight to continue as scheduled—with the possibility of a vacant belt—or the Bellator MMA model of changing the bout to a catchweight non-title fight, it’s rare for an organization not to push for the match to go on in some form or fashion.

However, keeping those types of fights on a card comes with a certain amount of risk. If a promotion opts to allow one fighter to compete for the belt and he or she loses, it means you are left with a vacant title, which not only hurts that particular weight division’s reputation but can also damage the overall image of the company. If the organization instead selects to change the bout to a catchweight affair and remove the championship implications, fans may be less interested in the fight because the titleholder has nothing to truly lose. In either case, if a challenger has missed weight and wins the bout in dominant fashion, there is confusion about what the implications of that victory means for the division.

The best thing a promoter can do to deal with fighters missing weight for a title bout is take preventative action. While it has seldom been utilized thus far, the UFC has started bringing in backup fighters to show up and make weight in case someone fails to hit the mark for a championship match. Enacting harsher penalties for fighters who miss weight is another option, such as Jungle Fight’s approach of deducting a point if an athlete fails to make the contracted weight limit. For fighters who habitually fail on the scale, a promotion may decide to force those competitors to move up a weight class or possibly even release them should it become a big enough problem.

Although some of those actions are more extreme than others, the fallout from athletes missing weight for a title fight can significantly damage a promotion, especially smaller organizations. There is little doubt that fighters will endure putting themselves through extreme weight cuts as long as they believe it gives them an advantage, and as a result, athletes will continue to miss weight regardless of which promotion’s banner they choose to fight under. Whereas companies are never happy when a fighter fails to meet weight expectations, there is far less damage and lighter ramifications when it occurs in a non-title bout, leading most promotions to adopt policies that increase the consequences of missing weight the higher a fighter ascends within a particular division.

As it stands, weight cutting remains a controversial subject in the MMA industry, but unless promotions are willing to adopt stricter policies or someone can somehow figure out a way to make the process safe and reliable, fans can expect more of the same—with hopefully fewer situations like the one that claimed the life of 21-year-old Jianbing Yang in 2015.