Dana White: Adding divisions won t help UFC s weight-cutting issues

Get the Full StoryUFC president Dana White believes that fighters will always try to cut as much weight as possible, no matter how many divisions there are. UFC president Dana White has obviously seen just about everything when it comes to weight-cutting issues in the sport. It seems like at least one fighter either misses weight or struggles mightily to get there for every one of the promotion s events. The last major scare was at UFC 216, when Kevin Lee came right down to the last second to make weight for a title fight, and it clearly affected his fight night performance along with a staph infection .

As a guest on Jay and Dan s Coors Side Seats podcast via TSN , White addressed the weight-cutting problem the sport has. But unlike many, he is not a proponent of adding new weight classes to address the situation transcript via MMA Junkie :

People are like, Add weight classes, do this, do that. It s never going to change. You re still going to have people trying to let s say I add a 165-pound weight class. That will only mean bigger guys will try to make 165. Everybody s always looking for an advantage.

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There s ways to cut weight, White said. There s safe ways. There s scientific ways. Nutritionists can help you do this. Everybody just wants to take shortcuts and the easy way. But there is no easy way when you re cutting weight.

He also stated that the promotion has used USADA anti-drug czar Jeff Novitzky to check the weight of fighters. This can been seen in various Embedded episodes, where former UFC champion Forrest Griffin is telling fighters how hydrated they are, how much the water weighs in their body, and so on.

He Novitzky tracks them. When you come in the week of the fight we find out where you are compared to where you were the last couple times you fought.

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