How MMA Fighters are Matched? - Fred Mergen
http://mergenmma.info/category/blog-video/
Weight Classes: http://www.ufc.com/discover/sport/weight-classes
Hi I'm Fred Mergen with Mergen Mixed Martial Arts and in this video we're going to talk about how MMA fighters are matched.
The way MMA fighters are matched is by weight class. Let's take light heavyweight which is 205 - 215 so if you are in that weight class that is what you're going to be in. You're going to be a light heavyweight.
Now if you are fighting for a title, if the title is at 205, both fighters have to be at 205. If they are like 206 then they're going to lose money on their purse.
Same with amateurs if they're off by half a pound or a pound, the fight won't happen until one of the fighters either gains or loses the weight they need to to get to 205.
Weigh ins typically on an MMA fight are the night before or the day before. Usually 12 hours before so if you fight on a Saturday, you weigh in on Friday night.
And what happens right after you weigh in you want to go and bulk back up the weight that you lost, either by eating rice, chicken, you want to stay with the proteins. And then get your weight back up and get all healthy.
Some MMA fighters go as far as to get IVs in to replenish all the fluids.
Most fighters are going to try to lose weight to get to the weight class and then gain it back so they can have an advantage on the ground. If it's a ground fight and they get on the ground and they have 10 extra pounds that makes a big difference. So basically most fighters will try to drop down weight.
For a long time, MMA fighter or UFC Fighter Frankie Edgar fought at 195 and that's what he fought at, he'd walk around at 197, cut 2 pounds and fight and 195. And he did a phenomenal job at it. Now I think he's cutting a little bit less he's cutting about ten pounds just to get to his fight which is phenomenal.
It's very dangerous to cut a lot of weight for MMA fighters, I actually have a friend of mine who just fought pro and lost 20 pounds in one day and was dry heaving the whole time at weigh ins and he ended up losing. What ends up happening is you lose all your nutrients and you expect to get them back in one day, that's a really tough thing to do.
So you want to try to be smart about cutting weight, don't try to cut too much weight. That's how you can get sick and in the future you could have some health issues that you really don't want to deal with.
Thank you for watching how MMA fighters are matched and if you have any questions or comments, leave them below in our comment area and if you are interested in the weight divisions, click on the link below and it will take you to the page where you can see where the divisions and what weight classes and everything.