Joe Rogan Describes Why Weight Cutting Is Worse Cheating Than Steroids
The topic of extreme weight cutting continues to place a black eye on the sport of MMA. With fights affected by extreme cuts on a weekly basis, octagon commentator Joe Rogan has become one of the most prominent critics of the practice.
Rogan recently sounded off on weight cutting during his Joe Rogan Experience Podcast (via MMA Fighting), claiming that the draining weight cuts are cheating on a level above even that of steroids:
“It is stupid,” Rogan said. “What it is is sanctioned cheating. It’s sanctioned cheating and it’s cheating at a much higher scale even than PEDs.
“If you get two people and they both weigh 135 [pounds] but they’re both totally hydrated and one of them has been doing steroids and one of them hasn’t been doing steroids, the difference will be far less than if one person weighs in at 135 [pounds] but then balloons up to 160 [pounds] and then gets into that octagon at 160 [pounds] but there’s no PEDs involved. That’s a much greater advantage than someone whose doing some sort of testosterone thing or something. They’re compromised but the benefit of being so much larger might outweigh being compromised.
“Dude, if I was running s**t, I’d fix that first. That would be the first thing I would fix.”
The solution to such a sport-wide problem isn’t easy, but Rogan pointed to Asia’s ONE Championship, who lost fighter Yang Jian Bing due to an extreme cut. Afterward, they implemented a system where fighters are weighed and tested for hydration levels every day leading up to a fight. It may be a stringent program, but fighters lives are on the line. Rogan believes every promotion should follow the path:
“People push it, they do push it,” Rogan said. “If you give them more time, they are gonna push it. If they know that they can rehydrate longer – which is the idea, that it’s safer because you can rehydrate from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. instead of from 4 p.m. on. I just think give them all the time they need. ONE FC has laid out the ground work. Look at what they did with their hydration tests and implement that.”
The problem of extreme weight cuts has been instilling itself in the UFC at a level more than ever right now, and a solution does not appear imminent. Perhaps attempting a system similar to that of ONE would go far in terms of solving the dangerous health threat it provides to fighters. Otherwise, they always seem willing to put their health on the line for any advantage in a fight.
That lead to the death of a fighter in ONE, who changed their weigh-in practices in a huge way as a result.
But the UFC has not. Will it take the death of one of their fighters for them to finally fix the biggest threat to their athletes’ health?
