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<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=457406" target="_blank">
Historic weigh in Friday morning
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">Andy Foster, executive director of the California State Athletic Commission, has an unparalleled perspective on the sport, as a former fighter, promoter, judge, and coach. He has led the fight against the deadly </span><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">culture of extreme weight cutting in mixed martial arts</span><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">. </span></p>
UFC 199 in Inglewood, California?, saw an historic weigh in Friday morning. Fighters at a major PPV were allowed to weigh in at 10:00 a.m., providing the body with an extra six hours to rehydrate, compared to the normal 4:00 p.m. weigh in time. It's part of series of new protocols recently passed by the CSAC.
All but two fighters weighed in by 11:00 a.m. with the final two, Sean Strickland and Clay Guida, done shortly afterwards.
Middleweight champion Luke Rockold summed up the fighter's viewpoint.
"F***ing great," he said to Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting.
"This is 100 times better," said Dominick Cruz.
"It was awesome," said Urijah Faber. "It was great."
The regular weigh in took place at 4:00 p.m., and the weights were announced at that point.
"I was shocked that so many [wanted to weigh-in at 10]," said Foster. "I thought there would be demand, but I didn't think it would be almost everyone. I thought many, but I didn't think everyone."
"There wasn't much of a bottleneck, but I would say a few fighters had to wait five, maybe at the max 10 minutes and to me that's a little long."
In addition to the early weigh in, doctors took greater care in looking for signs of severe dehydration, and hydration will be tested before the fight on Saturday using more sophisticated technology that usual.
The Kansas and Mohegan Sun commissions have also tried out the new regulations successfully.
A fear of course is that greater time to rehydrate could lead to a greater, and potentially more dangerous weight difference come fight time, but that has not come to pass thus far. There his hope that this will become the norm.
"I just want to see if there's a downside," said Foster. "I don't see one right yet, but we have to evaluate things better."
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