When UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway was pulled out of his UFC 226 title defense against Brian Ortega, the initial explanation of “concussion-like symptoms” provided more questions than answers.
UFC president Dana White then deepened the mystery by saying that Holloway wouldn’t be fighting any time soon.
Now, White has completely muddied the waters by suggesting Holloway was suffering from “water poisoning.”
“We heard that he was water loading, which is super dangerous,” White told Kevin Iole. “When you water load, and I didn’t know this for those of you out there that might not know, either, there is such thing as water poisoning. And you can actually drink too much water and die from it.”
White is telling the truth. Drinking too much water can kill you. However, the UFC boss did not explain why Holloway would be drinking potentially deadly amounts of water.
The fact of the matter is “water loading” is a common part of weight cutting, according to BodyBuilding.com. That might be why UFC fighters like Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov sent messages of support to Holloway on Twitter after he was pulled. Normally, when a fighter misses weight, other fighters take to social media to condemn their “unprofessional” comrades in arms.
Water loading normally starts at the beginning of a fighter’s weight cut, days before they step on a scale. They start systematically drinking far more water than they normally would, and in response to the excess water, the body responds by shedding liquid faster than it normally would. When timed correctly, this allows fighters to shed the final few pounds of “water weight” in the hours right before they have to weigh in.
What White is saying, then, is Holloway had to be pulled from UFC 226 because of yet another weight-cutting problem. It’s just that this time, the weight-cutting problem happened a week before the fight instead of in the hours before the event.
Weight cutting has been a massive problem for the UFC lately.
UFC 225’s main event was nearly ruined when Yoel Romero missed weight by 0.2 pounds. Because the Cuban missed weight, he was not allowed to compete for the middleweight championship against title-holder Robert Whittaker. Instead, the pair fought with no title on the line.
A month earlier, highly touted prospect Mackenzie Dern weighed in at 123 pounds for her fight at UFC 224. Dern fights in the 115-pound strawweight division.
And most famously, Holloway was pulled from the UFC 223 main event against Khabib Nurmagomedov for the 155-pound lightweight title because during his weight cut, Holloway was deemed medically unfit to fight. Holloway was a late replacement for Tony Ferguson, who injured himself in a freak accident just days before fight night.
These are just some of the most high-profile examples of weight-cutting problems in the UFC. While there is no way to know for sure exactly why so many fighters are having weight problems, White blames “early weigh-ins” and has repeatedly vowed to return to the organization’s old system.
In 2016, the UFC started weighing in fighters between 9-11 a.m. local time the day before the fight. Previously, fighters stepped to the scale in the evening before the fight.
An exhaustive analysis comparing the two systems by MMAJunkie.com revealed:
• Under the old system, from June 6, 2014, to May 30, 2016, there were 950 fights and 32 fighters missed weight.
• Under the new early weigh-in system, from June 3, 2016, to May 31, 2018, there were 962 fights and 62 fighters missed weight.
While White has said he wants to return to late weigh-ins, he has not revealed when the old system will return.