Ignoring the need for 165 is one of Dana's biggest mistakes

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A few years ago Diaz, Khabib, GSP, Chael and lots of other prominent fighters were talking about the need for 165 and Dana said he was not on board at all.

I know Dana can do math, I just don’t get why Dana does not want to adapt here.

Giving Cyborg a retarded division nobody fights in while willfully ignoring the need for 165 lbs is one of the biggest mistakes of Dana’s career. PFL is also retarded for creating a division for Harrison while there is no talent pool there either. The girl she is fighting in the finals is someone she already beat 2x and that fighter used to fight at FLW and BW before now being a LW.

When UFC created their 155 lb division there were literally like 40 active pros at 155 lbs globally. Same can be said for when they created 170. Now we are talking about thousands upon thousands of pros stuck in those two weights and they need 165 lbs. Almost 40% of male fighters are in that range. The FLW and HW males are so much more uncommon in the population globally.

In 99 when Uno beat Sato for the Shooto 154 lb title there were 9 active LWs ranked by fightmatrix, today there are 750 but that does not account all the other LWs with losing records and lesser records who are unable to make the rankings at all.

Thousands upon thousands of fighters want to compete in MMA between 155-175. They are stuck with two weight classes.

Meanwhile RIZIN, DEEP, Invicta, Combate have AW fights while the talent pool is no bigger than 30 women GLOBALLY competing in 2022.

RIZIN is giving Gabi Garcia HW fights with no talent pool.

UFC can’t even make rankings for their 145 lb female division because of no talent pool

PFL creates a fake division at 155 lbs for Harrison and lets her fight FLWs, BWs and a FW if they can find one.

Fightmatrix is able to rank 20 women combined for their joint 145 lb and 155 lb rankings.

All this promotion of WMMA with 6 fucking weight classes for like one hundred active women while the men that deserve a 165 lb division get ignored and shafted is the biggest running joke in MMA.

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It Is What Is Dana White GIF

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We don’t need champs separated by 5 lbs. it’s ridiculous and further dilutes weak divisions.

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125, 135, 145, 155 are all separated by 10lbs. 165 would be no different. You could up WW to 175lbs and maintain 185lbs. It would allow smaller welterweights to drop to 165lbs and larger lightweights to move up to 165lbs. It would also allow large weltweights to not have to cut so much to make weight for fights.

I can’t see any real arguments against the above. There are so many people in those weight ranges where having access to weights that better suit them would benefit their careers.

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155, 165, 175. This is what tons of fighters and coaches were saying was needed a few years ago but Dana came out against it.

All you have to do is look at the numbers of participants in the sport and see who is competing where to understand why it is needed.

Barnaoui is a LW who won a 46 man GP to win the ROAD FC GP. He just now got a Bellator deal.

At what other weight could a man win a 46-man GP and still not be signed by Bellator, ONE or the UFC for two years?

Most of the UG has not even heard of him because there is so much talent at LW, nobody can wrap their mind around it compared to WMMA, FLW, LHW and HW.

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The LW to WW jump has always seemed stupid.

I think the average man, in shape, would fall in the 140-170 lb range. Jamming the largest segment of the population into the broadest weight class is dumb, IMO. There should definitely be another weight class at 165, and WW should bump up to 175.

There have been so many fighters who never got to show their prime form, who were too big for 155 but undersized at 170.

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155 and 170 are so stacked that 165 could probably be added without hurting them too much.

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I think 15 lbs differences between weight classes is good.

Add hydration tests and same-day weight-ins, and you won’t see the ridiculous size differences often seen on the day of the fight now.

Most weight divisions are already weak, so we don’t need to make them even more shallow.

I’d have 125, 140, 155, 170, 185, 200, and 200+. Again, I’d also have hydration tests and same-day weigh-ins.

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I get what you’re saying OP because of the talent pool… but if you make this change you also need a 195.

Think about it more based on ratios… smaller differences make a larger impact on smaller guys.

Difference between 125 and 135 = 10lbs (10lbs to a guy weighing 125 is HUGE!

135 to 145 = 10lbs
145 to 155 = 10lbs
155 to 170 = 15lbs
170 to 185 = 15lbs
185 to 205 = 20lbs

I’d say the strength difference of 15lbs of muscle in someone weighing ~180lbs is equivalent to 10lbs difference at 125lbs.

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Usman Nurmagomedov is 14-0 and he just beat Chris Gonzalez who happens to have been a world class greco guy who placed at world’s prior to MMA. Usman is ranked 60th in the world, Gonzalez is not even in the top 100 at the moment.

Everyone thought a few years ago Will Brooks could be the guy to beat Khabib, he is the 71st ranked LW at the moment.

Pimblett, people are high on him and he is 19-3 in the sport…ranked 63rd in the world.

Ismagulov, 24-1 in the sport, 6-0 in the UFC, ranked 34th in the world. Not even top 25 yet despite his record.

Just saying the depth you see here at LW is not something we saw in the sport ten years ago and you don’t see it at FLW, LHW and HW in men’s MMA and WMMA is a complete joke compared to this type of a division.

I give Dana credit for tons of things he does right but ignoring the need to expand 55 and 70 to 55, 65 and 75 is horrific.

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I think they should have the ring card girls fight…

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For my penis!

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155-165-175 makes the most sense imo

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Thats exactly what I’m saying… the talent pool size requires 55, 65 and 75.

UFC implemented 55 and 70 when the global talent pool was literally maybe 1% of what it is in 2022 and refusing to change is just crazy.

There is a 28-3 LW and a 15-1 LW about to have fights on DWCS soon. Both fighters are ranked in the top 100 fightmatrix LW rankings already. You won’t find guys like that on DWCS from other divisions.

Everyone was shocked when Nastyukhin beat Eddie Alvarez in ONE a while ago. Not me, thats LW, thats how deep the division is.

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Everyone is high on Gilbert Burns and for good reason, a few years ago, Rashid Magomedov beat him and gave Dariush a real close fight on now Rashid is just the 9th ranked fighter in the big Russian league, ACA. Recently dropped a split decision to 40-8 Tiger Sarnavsky.

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If I remember correctly, Dana’s other excuse for not doing this was he didnt want guys hopping from division to division and being champ champ, holding up title fights in their divisions.

Fast forward to now and those fighters make him the most money and he loves it.

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So Dana says creating a 3rd division would weaken LW and WW meanwhile Dana created WFW for Cyborg and that shit has weakened the entire UFC.

WMMA has to a degree weakened what the UFC was. Thats why you have to see certain girls on UFC PPV cards like last weekend. Because there is no talent pool. Thats also why you were about to see a 7-4 female (Shanna Young) on a two fight losing streak fight Maverick on the Usman Edwards card but Young was hospitalized due to a bad weight cut. Thats what happens when there is no talent pool.

When there is a giant talent pool like a LW then you are gonna see 28-3 pros and 15-1 pros fight on DWCS.

I can point five random Russian fighters in the ACA league who has as many fights in their career as there are pro women even actively fighting in the ten biggest leagues in 2022.

Weakens the talent pools, get the fuck out of here with that shit Dana. The numbers don’t lie but Dana does.

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Hey I’ve been wrong about countless things in my life, this is just something where Dana is older and has dug his heels in and he does not want to deal with the change at his age. The older you get the less you like admitting you were wrong about stuff… thats people in general.

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See if you are a female and 7-4 you can get on the Usman card even when you lost your last two fights and are 0-2 in the UFC or like Pena, you can get a title shot after going 2-2 in five years because WMMA is part of the agenda.

Now if you are unlucky enough to be a LW male, you might have to win a 46 man GP to get a Bellator deal like Barnoui just did after you have spent 10+ years in the sport and have had zero fights in the UFC or you might need to go 28-3 or 15-1 before getting a DWCS fight because you happen to have had the misfortune of being a LW from Eastern Europe.

Maybe if you are female and don’t want to cut weight, perhaps PFL will create a division for you or if you want to be on lots of gear and fight grandmothers, maybe RIZIN will have some HW fights for you like with Garcia.

But no, its 165 lbs that would weaken things. Give me a fucking break.

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Too many divisions as is. You’re really talking about a 5 lbs difference from 165 to 170?

If anything I’d rather see them cutting divisions at this point then adding more of them. They need to back to the 2009 days when there was only 5 champions and everyone knew who they were:

Brock Lesnar
Lyoto Machida
Anderson Silva
GSP
BJ Penn

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