Recently resurfaced footage from all the way back in 2012 shows Dana White perplexed by Vitor Belfort’s unusual technique for cutting weight.
With each passing week, the UFC production team releases hours upon hours’ worth of footage that offers glimpses into the lives of modern MMA fighters – yet that wasn’t always the case.
Back in 2012, it was Dana White’s own personal camera crew who were doing most of the heavy lifting, trailing the UFC CEO from event-to-event and capturing all manner of behind-the-scenes content.
Dana White left dumfounded by Vitor Belfort’s secret to weight-cutting
In January 2012, the UFC returned to Rio De Janeiro for a PPV that featured Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson and former light heavyweight champion Vitor ‘The Phenom’ Belfort in the co-main event.
Johnson vs Belfort was originally booked to take place at middleweight but was eventually moved to a catchweight of 197lbs after the American failed to make weight.
Yet behind-the-scenes video footage from Dana White’s Fight Week VLOG series, which has recently resurfaced online, reveals that Belfort was also struggling to cut the pounds.
As White watched Belfort cutting weight in the locker room, the UFC CEO looked completely dumbfounded when the Brazilian picked up and chomped down on a towel packed with ice cubes.
“Hey, can I get a bite of that?” laughed White as he attempted to negotiate the consequences of a catchweight bout, i.e., 20% of Johnson’s purse, should Belfort want to forgo the rest of the cut.
Belfort’s pre-fight snack certainly raised one or two eyebrows; however, what he was doing was keeping his mouth wet so that he didn’t take in more water than he needed to before weigh-ins.
Belfort would ultimately agree to fight Johnson at 197lbs – that decision proved worthwhile as just a few hours later, he scored a first-round submission in front of his boisterous home crowd.
Joe Rogan calls UFC weight-cutting ‘sanctioned cheating’ in fiery rant
In a sport that allows elbows, knees, kicks, and all manner of damaging strikes; the most dangerous part of fighting in Mixed Martial Arts remains the weight-cutting process.
Throughout his career as a UFC commentator, Joe Rogan has seen how the process can have disastrous consequences for a fighter’s career and health, even once labeling it as ‘sanctioned cheating’.
“No one should be cutting weight kids, I think what they really should do is just find out what you f—– actually weigh and just stop this nonsense,” he said on the Joe Rogan Podcast back in September.
“It should be looked at the same way that steroids are looked at, it should be looked at the same way that all other kinds of cheating are looked at – it’s sanctioned cheating… And [there should be] more options for weight classes.
“One of the things that they say about head injuries and deaths in boxing is that the vast majority of them don’t take place at heavyweight,” acknowledged the popular UFC insider.
“So the guys that hit the hardest are not the guys who are getting these horrible brain injuries or dead inside the ring… A lot of the guys who are dying are dying in weight classes where they cut a lot of weight.
“Let them eat, let them hydrate themselves, f— all this weighing in,” concluded Rogan, adding how “It’s a part of the [MMA] culture that can be eradicated – I don’t think it’s impossible.”