So awesome at the moment, there appears to be a lot more options for combat sports, the feeders to the UFC are becoming stronger, there's bare knuckle boxing and even traditional boxing has been in a resurgence for a few years I reckon.
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What a farce.
Caught the co-main with Alvarez. Alvarez disqualified early in the first for strikes behind the ear. Then when the commentary team go to speak with Eddie, he can't hear them through tech difficulties (they spoke eventually, but what a poor look). All together a bad look for the promotion, which has put this event together fot the US market.
Apparently you need to contact part of the ear, any strike that hits further back is illegal.Behind the ear is ok isn't it?
Then the irony of the different rules about a downed opponent with DJ getting KO'd.
Worst outcome for their US market.
Anyone catch JWP's recent FB post about passing the hydration test after weigh in ?
Bloody brutal situation
In elite level sport, athletes will do whatever they can do to get an edge. This is as true in Combat Sports as it is any other. Fighters use weight manipulation, or weight cutting, to gain a perceived advantage over their opponent.
Due to the potentially fatal consequences of participating in weight cutting in an uncontrolled, unscientific and unsupervised fashion, many have put forth ways to stop athletes from doing it.
One of the ways that is often proposed, and that is used by ONE Championship, is hydration testing.
This requires the athlete to not only make their contracted fight weight, but also to pass a Urine Specific Gravity (USG) test to demonstrate that they are “hydrated”, which ultimately demonstrates that they have not participated in any weight cutting prior. This then has to be completed on two consecutive days.
In theory, this is a great initiative, in practice it causes many athletes to put themselves at higher risks to their health and performance. Why? Because it is the nature of elite level sport to try and game the system to gain an advantage. In other words, athletes will continue to cut weight and attempt to cheat the hydration system.
This is completely counter productive to the purpose of the testing, but what is even worse is that is sets a terrible example to younger athletes which ultimately perpetuates the entire issue of weight cutting.
This post is a long read, but it summarizes why many respected professionals in this field do not think hydration testing (as it is used today) is the answer to weight cutting and why more importantly, athletes should be given the resources to better manage their weight outside of the competition period to avoid the need to cut drastic amounts come competition time.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Let’s discuss below!