Weight cutting is a hotly debated topic within the sport of mixed martial arts. While some accept the practice as a necessity of the sport, others claim that the practice of excessive weight cutting is in and of itself a form of cheating. Now longtime UFC commentating veteran Joe Rogan has decided to weigh-in on the hot topic.
Speaking on his podcast the JRE MMA Show, Joe Rogan revealed that he believes excessive weight cutting is a more advantageous form of cheating than performance enhancing drugs.
“It is stupid. What it is is sanctioned cheating. It’s sanctioned cheating and it’s cheating at a much higher scale even than PEDs. If you get two people and they both weigh 135 [pounds] but they’re both totally hydrated and one of them has been doing steroids and one of them hasn’t been doing steroids, the difference will be far less than if one person weighs in at 135 [pounds] but then balloons up to 160 [pounds] and then gets into that octagon at 160 [pounds] but there’s no PEDs involved.
“That’s a much greater advantage than someone whose doing some sort of testosterone thing or something. They’re compromised but the benefit of being so much larger might outweigh being compromised.
“Dude, if I was running s**t, I’d fix that first. That would be the first thing I would fix.”
“People push it, they do push it. If you give them more time, they are gonna push it. If they know that they can rehydrate longer – which is the idea, that it’s safer because you can rehydrate from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. instead of from 4 p.m. on. I just think give them all the time they need. ONE FC has laid out the ground work. Look at what they did with their hydration tests and implement that.”
