Daniel Cormier historically has a difficult weight cut, and having to step onto the scale in the morning hasn’t exactly helped.
The UFC light heavyweight champion said on the Outside the Cage podcast that the early weigh-ins, which were introduced to the UFC in June 2016, force fighters to go to sleep the night before almost entirely dehydrated.
“The morning weigh-ins does make it a little bit tougher,” said Cormier, who faces Volkan Oezdemir in the UFC 220 co-main event on Saturday night in Boston. “When I was making weight at four in the afternoon, it was real easy, because you could sleep all morning, get up at 11, go lose your weight like a normal workout, then go weigh-in in the afternoon.
“The morning weigh-ins now make it a little bit more difficult, because you get no rest. You don’t float any weight anymore. Before, (when) you went to bed at seven over, you knew when you got up at 8 a.m. you’d be five over, because you’d float two pounds overnight. Now, you don’t really get that, because you’re starving when you go to bed, because you go to bed so close to the weight. You don’t float anything, and then you get up in the morning and you have to just make the weight. I’m not the biggest fan of the morning weigh-ins, I gotta be honest.”
The premier MMA promotion introduced the early weigh-ins at UFC 199, which was headlined by Michael Bisping’s title-winning upset of Luke Rockhold. The early weigh-ins were part of a package passed by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) earlier that year. At the time, the Kansas and Mohegan Sun commissions had already started doing early weigh-ins with local events.
The early weigh-ins have generally been met with mixed results. Per MMAjunkie.com’s Mike Bohn, in the 18 months prior to the introduction of the early weigh-ins, 17 UFC fighters missed weight, while in the 18 months since the introduction of the early weigh-ins, 51 UFC fighters either missed weight or failed to weigh in.
Cormier, who competed in the heavyweight division earlier in his MMA career, nearly missed weight ahead of a title defense against Anthony Johnson at UFC 210 in Buffalo, New York last April. He initially was heavier than the 205-pound limit, but after being granted a second attempt, he made weight moments later. However, the second weigh-in was controversial; he leaned on a towel, which seemingly lowered his weight.
Cormier made weight ahead of his long-awaited rematch with Jon Jones at UFC 214 last summer.
UFC 220 takes place at TD Garden. In the main event, Stipe Miocic defends the heavyweight title against Francis Ngannou. The early weigh-ins take place Friday morning.