There is a laundry list of possible things that can take a fighter out of their scheduled fight. The newest popular trend in missing a fight has been failed weight cuts. Weight cutting has been a problem for fighters health for a long time, but recently there have been a surprising number of fights cancelled due to a failed weight cut.
Gunnar Nelson is not a fighter who cuts a lot of weight, and many say that he is even undersized for his division. Nelson’s manager and dad, Halli Nelson, believes that Gunnar is perfect for the welterweight division, and that the problem is the extreme weight cutting that fighters are doing.
“I think that the extreme weight cutting that fighters are doing is a problem that needs to be addressed. I think it would be a good move for the UFC or the Nevada State Athletic Commission to address this problem,” Nelson says. (19:49)
Nelson went on to talk about how the UFC and athletic commissions have improved their drug testing policies, and how those same improvements must be made to the current weight cutting system.
“What they could do is a weight gain limit. You would still have the same form of weigh ins the day before, but the day of your fight you step on a scale, and you cannot put on more than a certain amount of pounds. If you do that then you could lose part of your purse, or even a point deduction in a fight.”
The point deduction idea is an interesting one as Ian McCall recently fought and lost a decision to an overweight John Linker. Had Linker been deducted a point for missing weight, the fight would have been ruled a draw.
“However they do this, they need to address this problem. People cutting 30-40 pounds is ridiculous. People might obviously be worried about [dehydration] if fighters are not allowed to put on as much weight as they can between weigh-ins and the fight. On the other hand if you are not allowed to put on more than, for example, 15 pounds between weigh-ins and the fight then it should not make any sense to cut more then that in the first place. So in the long run this should reduce the risk of dehydration. ”
Nelson also says that when Gunnar fought Zak Cummings that Cummings weighted 207 pounds on fight day, while Gunnar fought at 175 pounds, making for a 32 pound difference in weight.
“This is not the reason that we have weight classes. This makes no sense to me. You have fighters that are 20-30 pounds different and they’re in the same weight class?”
Nelson compared massive weight cutting measures to PED use as both give a fighter an advantage in the ring but come at a cost to the fighters health.
“It’s ridiculous to say that if you want to be a good athlete you should be a lab rat for drugs. At the same time for me it’s just as ridiculous that you have to be doing heavy weight cutting to be fighting people on the same level.”
Gunnar has not been scheduled for a fight, but his manager assured that the 15th ranked welterweight has no plans on changing weight classes any time soon.
