Ett flertal MMA-fighers har under den senaste tiden haft problem med att klara vikten inför deras matcher. Bland dessa återfinns bland annat Daniel Cormier och Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Frankie Edgar, den tidigare lättviktsmästaren, var nyligen med på The MMA Hour, där han bland annat sa att en utökning av viktklasserna inte kommer att lösa problemen med den extrema bantningen:
I do. Wrestling has seen it happen back in ‘96, ‘97, or something like that, where a few wrestlers died at the college level and they upped the weight classes, when asked for his thoughts on the subject. If you add more weight classes, it could encourage people to cut less weight, but it also might encourage someone to cut more weight. They’ll say, ‘Oh, I couldn’t make ‘55, but I can make ‘65,’ and they were going ‘70.
So I don’t know, I think people are always going to look for a way to get an advantage and cutting weight is going to be really tough to get people to stop doing that. Maybe hydration tests. In college, the best way we did it, we did hour weigh-ins, you weigh in an hour before you compete. But that’s just not feasible, I think, in MMA.
Andra alternativ som har presenterats för att motverka fighters extrema bantning är att de bör väga in sig just innan deras match, till skillnad från att fighters väger in sig ungefär 36 timmar innan deras match. Edgar gav sin åsikt om denna lösning också:
I guess you could, it’s just you see people miss weight now, the day before it’s a bad scramble, Imagine day of, how bad that scramble is.
It’s just tough. I don’t think there’s any easy answer. Some suggestions have to happen or something bad will happen. You’re seeing guys end up in hospitals for weight cuts pretty frequently, luckily they’re getting the help they need and nothing too serious happens.
Edgar har inte under sin karriär haft dokumenterade problem med att klara vikten, oavsett om han har tävlat i lättvikt eller fjädervikt.
Edgar sa att han förstår att vissa fighters kan hjälpas av att de skulle vara tvungna att vägas in under hela året och att de inte får väga mer än tio procent över deras tävlingsvikt. Edgar förstår och har accepterat att han måste vara beredd att möta större motståndare om han inte skall ha problem med bantningen inför matcherna:
Maybe a little more than that. 10 percent is tough, 10 percent is like 10-15 pounds for me, at least, even less. I think 10 percent is a little too low, maybe a little bit more. It would be tough for guys to hold their diet all the way around. Some guys do get fat, you know what I mean? Some guys need to diet to make weight, some guys do belong at lower weight classes. But there are some guys that cut way too much. It’s almost, to me, that’s not the tough guy’s mentality, cut a bunch of weight to be the bigger guy. I’d rather be the little guy fighting the bigger guy.
I do this sport to be the toughest. Not to have the most advantages and win. I did it to prove that I’m the best at fighting itself, not at everything else.
Edgar kommer härnäst att möta Max Holloway om fjäderviktsbältet på UFC 218, som går av stapeln den andra december i Detroit.
Edgars medverkan i The MMA Hour återges nedan:
