I get what you’re saying, but not everyone has to be 260. Stipe is the most successful UFC HWT ever, and he was 230 for the last DC fight. Werdum was 236 for the Cain fight, Cain was 242 for that fight and 244 for Brock, JDS was champ at 240.
My point is, there’s been like 2 UFC HWT champs ever who were 260+ and in shape, and that was Brock and Francis. There were a handful of contenders like Carwin that were also huge, but we’re talking about a very small amount of guys. Gane is considered a big HWT, and he was 247 when he won the belt.
If Francis retires tomorrow, this entire argument is really unnecessary. If the “big” HWTs are typically 245-250, and the majority of the recent champs were 230-245, I don’t think we need a different weight class…205 and HWT are the shallowest men’s divisions in the sport. Johnny Walker has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights and is still in the top 10. We don’t need those divisions to be even shallower.
Wait, you think a guy who’s in shape at 240 couldn’t dehydrate himself to 225? That’s only 15 pounds! A welterweight will cut that much. How can you have been watching MMA for ten years and not understand how weight cutting works!
At least now the mystery is solved. Anyone who actually understands the sport has been befuddled for years by why so many fans want a 225 weight class. Now we know: such fans don’t know shit about MMA.
I agree that HWT should be open weight. Now that we have USADA, we’re not going to see any more prime Bob Sapp, jacked 350 pounders who can go berserk for ten minutes.
I don’t see how a 185 and 165 isnt wanted or needed. And no one watches the girls. At least not for most part.
I’m not sexist and some of the better scraps have been from right combo of female fighters. But the good ones are so few and far between. It’s tough when you have killers like rose, sc
SHevchenko, Nunez…
right…it’s tough to have the Rose and Valentina fights without the rest of the top 15 on tv too, but man…I hate it when a PPV main card has a fight between 2 women I don’t care about. There isn’t a single fight you can make in a men’s division that includes 2 ranked guys that I wouldn’t be pumped about, but there’s like 5 women’s fights a year I get excited about.
Yeah we need either more weight classes or something done. So many of UFC fighters don’t get enough shine they will start going to other organizations to fight. If anything this massive hire of young fighters would water down the sport imo.
The reason more weight classes is bad is simple, let me explain:
If you create a new weight class, I’d imagine 90+% of the top fighters in that division would be cutting from the weight class above. Example, create 195, it’s gonna be all former 205s. Create 165, it’s gonna be all 170s.
It’s just gonna make the weight cutting problem worse.
I’m honestly not in favor of diluting the sport any further than it already has been. In my opinion, there are already fighters in the UFC that don’t belong there. I’m ok with the lighter weight classes but I think that the UFC isn’t doing them justice. They aren’t being marketed properly. 135lbs and 125lbs can be a success if they market it towards the Asian audiences and Asian countries. I don’t see the lighter weight classes headlining any PPV cards in North America unless a legitimate superstar/media darling emerges, but I could see China, Brazil, Philippines, Macau, Singapore supplying talent and hosting events and being enough to keep these divisions intact. It only takes one or two people to get the publics attention. FW had some legit world class talent but the public didn’t care until Conor MacGregor showed up. He put FW on the map and the division still reaps the benefits of it years later.
I’m not on board with that, because of the addition of 2 classes also means fewer fighters per class initially.
Some will try to cut too much and fuck up. It would be a transition.
But ultimately it would be best for the sport, proven by the point that there will be more options for each fighter with lesser gaps between weights. The math alone backs it long term, but short term would.be some adjustment.
Also, UFC really want MORE fights? Because they aren’t being pressured to change anything up. No real push for them to change.
No, thats not at all what I said. I said the difference is 240 to 225 isn’t a big cut but 240 to 205 is. Also, I purchased Ufc 1 on ppv when it came out. I’m 49 yrs old. I understand weight cutting.
Already have guys jumping from 155-170 which is the widest gap proportionately so new classes isn’t needed. Adding classes just to make more champs just waters down the titles like in boxing where you have champs & real actual champs
Exactly the point of my satirical post that you objected to. You apparently think there are a bunch of hypothetical 240 pound men who dream of fighting in MMA, but gave up the dream because they are too small. If you actually understand MMA, you know that the guys who would fight at 225 wouldn’t actually weigh 225. They would weigh at least 240, so they are guys who are already big enough to fight at heavyweight. There’s no point in adding a 225 weight class.
Only title fights in the UFC for WMMA and leave the rest in Invicta.
That will force people to watch Invicta if they want to see what’s up with WMMA up and comers and then the UFC reaps the benefits of the title matches.
Women weight classes can be Strawweight (115) Flyweight (125) Bantamweight (135) and Featherweight (145) but the pool is not deep enough anywhere else to consider any other weight class right now.
For men, the weight classes should be:
Flyweight 125
Bantamweight 135
Featherwight 145
Lightweight 155
Welterweight 170
Middleweight 185
Cruiserweight 205
Light-Heavyweight 235
Heavyweight 265
Super Heavyweight 265+
Also, stop having fights willy-nilly.
PPVs should only have title fights or fights that involve the top 10 in a division.
You can throw in a mega fight if you want PPV numbers but the rest of the card needs matches that mean something for the title contention or the title itself.
Free TV shows can be used to build up and comers or see guys on their way out and both of thes types can use those fights to fight their way back onto a PPV.