Chris Leben gave it his best shot when he faced Mark Munoz at UFC 138. Leben scored with some punches, came close with a few submissions and even got a pair of takedowns over the much better wrester. In the end Munoz’s skills were just too much though and Leben was forced to retire from the bout when he said he couldn’t see due to vision problems stemming from a cut over his eye.
Now, Fighters Only Magazine is reporting that Leben had a terrible weight cut:
Chris Leben cut nearly 21 pounds in 24 hours to make weight for his fight with Mark Munoz, Fighters Only was told ahead of last night’s bout.
The 31-year old middleweight had “a terrible weight cut” and was in such bad shape before the weigh ins that medical staff were keeping a very close eye on him.
A source close to Leben told Fighters Only on Friday that Leben had been left “shattered” by the amount of weight he had to cut on weigh-in day.
It didn’t appear that Leben appeared weak or overly tired as the fight wore on. No more than one would expect from the way Munoz was grinding on him anyway.
This isn’t coming from Leben’s camp so it doesn’t seem like excuse making but it is unfortunate that in Leben’s last too losses we’ve heard that he was sick (against Brian Stann) and now that he cut over twenty pounds in a day.
I think the idea of trying to eliminate weight cutting is not a good one and the idea of same-day weigh-ins is dangerous. But I wouldn’t be opposed to monitoring of the fighters all day the day of the weigh-ins. If a guy is 20 pounds over weight less than a day before he needs to step on the scales? He probably is not going to have a “safe” weight cut.
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