No, all the discussions about creating 165 also involved changing 170 to 175.
Here are the NCAA weight classes
125, 133, 141, 149, 157, 165, 174, 184, 197, 285
Know why you see 80% of the weights between 133 and 197? Because thats where the wrestlers are. Especially between 141 to 184 because most men can cut do those weights, 125 lbs and 285 lbs are for the outliers. Most men are in the middle, hence why LW MMA has way more talent than the other weights and hence why 57, 65 and 174 lbs exists in wrestling… because math and population weight distribution.
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See how they even have 141 and 149… again, because thats where more of the talent pool is able to make weight… closer to the average, look at a bell curve.
Exactly, 95% of the time when fans and critics are complaining about ridiculous weight cuts, it’s to make 155 lb… Hence why 155 is always fucking stacked.
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24/38 or 63% of male UFC fighters who have won the most FOTN and POTN awards are 145 lb, 155 lb and 170 lb fighters despite the fact that they represent only 38% of the male weight classes.
14/16 or 88% of the fighters to have been awarded 10 or more FOTN and POTN awards in the UFC are male fighters who have competed at LW. 100% of those bonus winners are men who have competed at LW or WW in their MMA careers.
Clearly the LWs and the WWs are the most bonus worthy and exciting fighters in the sport and it would be very logical to let that talent have the platform it needs via the 3rd weight class.
Agree 100%. Most divisions are already weak. And some are advocating further diluting them?
With such a shallow talent pool and even more weight classes, there would be divisions with champs that no one even knows.
The answer is weight classes separated by 15 lbs, which almost exists right now. 15lbs is a real difference. 10 lbs? If you’re within 10 lbs of another fighter, you should be facing each other, not hiding in another division. Add hydration tests and same-day weigh-ins to the equation, and you have an even playing field. It would rid mma of vicious dehydration weight cuts and obvious size differences on fight night.
Because we have enough title fights already. I know it’s great to see the best for 25 minutes. But it’s also good to see them fight 3 rounds and use haste, causes excitement!
For the love of fuck,
WE DO NOT NEED MORE WEIGHT CLASSES!
There’s already a stupid amount.
Too many tiny children sized dudes in the UFC.
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There’s just too much disparity in talent in the ufc. You could argue for a 155,165,175 but it’s not really necessary. The top 5-7 guys have been fighting each other for years now. Some of them multiple times.
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That is not really what has been happening at LW at all.
Did you not just Charles and Makhachev just climb the ranks and go 21-0 combined?
Did you not see Fiziev just climb the ranks and beat RDA?
How about Gamrot enter the UFC and go 4-1 and now he is close to #1 contender?
What about Chandler walking in and beating Tony and Hooker, two high ranked UFC fighters?
What about Alvarez going to one and getting TKOed by Nastyukin?
Shortly before Chandler became a top UFC LW he got TKOed by Bellator’s best FW.
Burns, Masvidal, Chiesa were not event top 15 LWs and now that they have moved up to 170 they are. Pettis left LW and KOed Thompson a top 10 WW and now he just lost twice to guy who is not even a top 30 ranked LW in Ray.
Of course every career has a rise, a prime and a decline but there are so many more than 5-7 top fighters, timing matters and styles make fights as always.
There is way more than 5-7 guys, I don’t think you get the talent pool at all to be honest.
For sure. I did not clarify in the original post that 170 would need to be moved to 175 lbs but I intended to say that but can not edit the post now.
For sure 170 would need to move to 175.
I do believe we will see it happen in MMA within the next decade. Everyone knows what the talent pools look like compared to one another in this sport.
Its easy for Dana to say it won’t happen while he is around, the create of 165 lbs is something that would benefit the fighters in the giant talent pools… that is not Dana’s concern here.
Dana didn’t create WFW in the UFC for the fighters…there were only like three of them at that weight at the time, he did it to make money with Cyborg. Same reason he created WBW when Ronda was getting some hype. I just don’t understand why they don’t get how much more of a platform all their most talented fighters between 155-175 would have if they just gave them another title and division like that talent pools require. As shown above, those are the fighters who deliver all the FOTN’s and POTN’s for the damn promotion to begin with. Give them another title, another spotlight. Then you won’t have to have 28-3 pro LWs on DWCS while the females on that show are 2-1 and 5-3.
$10 says you have no idea what size of the talent pools look like compared to one another.
This thread has been done a thousand times before, but never this well. I like the numbers/rankings you’ve included for guys outside the organization. It paints the situation in a very damning light. Well done @BJ_Penn_Forever . It’s about time we move to 155-165-175-185. The UFC literally has a hundred guys fighting at each of 155 and 170, but only a handful at 125, HW, and WMMA.
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If they make 165 the sport is only going to get more watered down and more saturated. They already do the interim title bullshit too much.
I am in favor of no more weight classes.
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Too many weight classes. Next they will double and be all separated by 5 pounds. When will it be enough?
Guess what, pussies. Sometimes a dude will have a few pounds on you.
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I would be in favor of 165 IF the UFC operated how it did under the Fertitta’s.
But nowadays the sport and divisions move SO SLOW… the champs usually fight only 2x per year. Adding more champs will make this even worse, IMO
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Agreed.
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There are guys that jump into the ranks like macachev and khamzat but for the most part it’s been the same fighters competing for the title for years. RDA, Charles, Dustin, gaetchje, chandler, Ferguson are all past their athletic prime but they’re still top 10. These guys are all in their 30s in a lower weight class. Rda, Chandler and Ferguson are almost 40 years old. All of these guys should be a couple of fights away from retirement. Something doesn’t add up here.
These are great points that are hard to argue against. I don’t want to argue that they’re wrong, but I want you to stand back and look at the MMA landscape. Ask the question, who should we be watching on the biggest stage? Should it be the non-existent competition at 125 or WMMA?
There’s a serious argument to be made for trading in 125 and WMMA for 155-165-175-185. We’d be trading in virtually non-existent talent for the most talent rich pool of fighters. @BJ_Penn_Forever actually wrote out a list of guys that have won 45 man tournaments just to be signed to a BELLATOR promotional deal at 155. That’s absolutely insane. There are guys with 15-0 and 20-1 records at 155 that are showing up on the DWCS. In a sense, that’s great, it means 155 has never been better. But do these guys deserve to be seen RIGHT NOW? Consider the alternatives. Would you rather make room for these guys, or would you rather watch another Jessica Eye fight, who is what, 0-8 in her last 8 fights (completely guessing).
We’ve got the wrong divisions right now. It’s obvious. The only question remains: what divisions SHOULD we have? It makes sense to add divisions in the most talent rich area. The divisions would still be 10lbs apart, which is still greater than the NCAA’s 8lb gaps.
Hindsight being what it is, Dana’s biggest fuck up was bringing in 125 and WMMA FW instead of shuffling the divisions to get 155-165-175-185. In terms of investment in his own company, he invested in the wrong things.
Here’s what I propose to fix it.
125 Men’s → Gone.
115-125-135 WMMA → 120-130 WMMA
145 WMMA → Gone.
3 of the most underperforming, talent starved divisions disappear and get reallocated to the most talent rich pool of fighters. The competition level skyrockets. No more fighters who are 0-8 in their last 8 on UFC main cards. The right guys get watched. And 10 lb gap isn’t that bad (keep in mind it’s what we already have for 125-135-145-155).
I honestly don’t know how anyone could argue to keep 125 and the current WMMA structure the way that it is. WMMA’s weight classes are a laughing stock, in particular. It could be argued to scrap it all and create a 127lb weight class.
Either way, Dana is just making himself look incompetent by keeping the current structure.
If there were a 15-0 or a 20-1 fighter in WMMA, we’d currently be talking about them as the female GOAT. But since they are men, we can’t even get them into the UFC.
Edit:
Valentina 23-3
Zhang Weili 22-3
Amanda Nunes 22-5
ThugRose 11-5
Joanna Champion 16-5
Holly 14-6
Ronda 12-2