On the 11th of December 2015, One championship fighter, Yang Jian Bing died just days before his scheduled bout. You may think he passed away due to a brain injury or from previous damage taken within the ring but no. Yang Jian Bing died whilst cutting weight to make the 125 Flyweight limit. Not even dying by the sword of his sport but before he even made his ring walk the following Saturday evening.
Most fans see weigh-ins in combat sports as straightforward practice and even lambaste the fighters who miss weight, recently Khamzat Chimaev who missed weight at UFC 279, but most fight fans don’t realise what competitors do before stepping on the scales.
What is Weight-Cutting and Why?
Weight classes have existed even in the early days of bare-knuckle boxing all be it consisting of three very ungoverned weight classes. This consisted of heavyweight, middleweight, and lightweight. Then the first widely governed set of weight classes was introduced in the 1920 Olympics, Flyweight (112), Bantamweight (118), Featherweight (126), Lightweight (135), Welterweight (147), Middleweight (160), Light heavyweight (175) and Heavyweight (176+). This came with simple weight cutting where most fighters would gradually tone down via healthy and non-specific ways like through training and eating.
Then over 60 years later, the same day weigh-ins would be slowly banned and replaced by weighing in the day before, this was initially done by the Nevada State Athletic Commission which at the time was advised by Dr. Flip Homansky (who was a former Nevada State Athletic Commission commissioner) and now is serving as chief of quality care for Las Vegas’ Valley health system. The hope that Homansky had was that fighters would use the extra day to properly rehydrate, but this was not the case.
This introduced the more modernly known weight cut which is far more severe. The modern weight cut is not particularly based on cutting fat but on manipulating the body water, stored carbohydrates (Glycogen) and gut contents. Originally this was to ensure the fighters gained an advantage on their opponent by weighing in lighter and competing heavier than the limit. This has now become such a regular in combat sports that according to Conor McGregors Nutritionist, Dr John Connor, “It used to be people were cut weight to gain an advantage over your opponent. Now you do it to not be at a disadvantage to your opponent”
Professionals Vs Amateurs
Despite the rule changes for professionals, amateur boxing stays the same (weighing in the same day) and has many different challenges compared to the pros.
The obvious challenge for amateurs is the lack of time they have between weigh-ins and fight time, explained by Dr Langan Evans ( a weight-cutting expert and nutritionist to multiple world champions)“Amateurs you’re lucky if you get 2/3/4 hours before you fight. And you know, in a tournament scenario, you’ve got to do that every morning of your event. So you’re not getting 24 hours yet, you’re looking at getting maybe eight hours.”
This has caused a historical opposite compared to the professional ranks whereby the fighters will ensure they stay within a weight they can manage relatively comfortably which Dr Langan Evans believes is key “The key with that is not to lose too much weight, so it affects your performance and I can’t really give any generalised guidance in terms of what to do, because it’s very different person to person.”
Amateurs Are a Apprenticeship
He also reinforces the idea of using the amateur ranks as an apprenticeship in boxing “The best guidance I can give is to understand when you’ve grown out of your weight, particularly in junior boxers and schoolboys, understand you’re not going to be that weight, you’re going to grow you’re going to get bigger and that might be a benefit to you actually moving up in weight. Amateur boxing is your apprenticeship. If you’re an amateur boxer and you’ve got ambitions of becoming a pro or you’ve got ambitions of getting into the GB team and going on to the Olympics, then you know your schoolboy years and your junior years, that’s where you learn the game.”
This is also key because the majority of amateurs are still learning the sport so putting the body through unnecessary risk and cutting too much weight is more dangerous than professionals. It is also why the majority of new pros used to fight at a higher amateur weight and reduce in the professional ranks.
Dr Connor is a big believer in preparing a weight cut over the fight camp and not leaving it to the final weeks of camp saying “The reason people miss weight is not because they mess up the last week is because they’ve messed up the previous 10/12 weeks.”
The professionals also offer a bigger financial gain meaning fighters can usually employ a nutritionist like Dr Evans or Dr Connor to help plan the weight cut and create a safer environment to lose the weight.
I believe the rules being slightly adjusted for the professionals vs amateurs, the key factors stay the same now when you’ve outgrown your weight and do most of the heavy lifting pre-fight week.
Problems With Education and Governing Bodies
As mentioned before a major issue within the idea of weight cutting is the health implications it can have on the fighters, especially when left on your own in the amateurs or lower professionals.
So surely the governing bodies within the UK or world platforms would have some sort of course or online advice on how to carry out this “necessary evil”.
Well no, this is a major oversight from the governing bodies within boxing which Dr Langan Evans has highlighted “Some education material, education sessions would be valuable. I mean, have you ever seen any of the ABA, or the British Boxing Board of Control ever invest in anything related to a session that parents, coaches and fighters could could watch? It wouldn’t be a great deal of investment. It just needs the right people to record the material and for it to go to the right end users.”
We Can Always Do More
He also believes that professional organisations can do more to help boxers know their bodies better “I think a real quick win is part of the medical, you have to do a body comp assessment. So this year, based on your body comp work, you go, you can’t make that weight, it’s not feasible, Or you want to make that weight? And it’s like, yeah, you can. You’ve just given them almost an MOT to go”
These simple introduction of these two things, it could ensure that most professionals and people involved in the amateur game could be educated in the best way to deliver for their athletes.
It is key to remember that it’s about the fighting and competing not about the weight cut something Dr Connor is keen to remind people “People forget it’s not about making weight. It’s about performance in the fight, in the match, in the competition, that’s what it’s about.”
Although it is obviously a massive issue within the sport it is one that the governing bodies have very little reason to get involved in, especially from a business and legal perspective.
Dr Langan Evans thinks this is key to why nothing has been done about the issue.
“The problem that you’ve got in professionals is that a lot of fighters in the professionals are essentially independent contractors, in a sense that they’re not contracted to the British Boxing Board of Control. These organisations don’t necessarily have any duty of care to these guys because of that”
Retirement and Eating Disorders
The problems don’t stop post-career either with many fighters ballooning up in weight throughout retirement from combat sports, most notably Prince Naseem Hamed and Ricky Hatton who gained a significant amount of weight post-career with the latter claiming he had two different wardrobes for in and out of camp.
This has caused many problems not only physical but mental issues with many fighters having “irreparable damage” caused to their relationship with food according to Dr Langan Evans
“It’s affected massively, and I think it’s affected pretty irreparably as well for a lot of people. There’s no hard evidence or data on the prevalence of, say, eating disorders in boxing but I think it’s it goes without saying that every boxer pretty much has got a disordered eating.”
Despite there being no hard evidence of the correlation between eating disorders and boxing there are some physical or physiological issues that come with the sport.
“So there’s a, there’s a thing that happens after after a training camp, it’s called rebound Hyperphagia. Hyperphagia comes from the Greek meaning, to overeat to eat a lot. This is where there’s just this insatiable desire for for fighters to just eat as much as they can of the things that they’ve been deprived from.”
This causes issues because when fighters are free from the “shackles” of weight management, they can overindulge in a lot of foods previously unavailable in their diet. Dr Connor is attempting to stamp out the idea of banned foods in camps.
“There’s no good or bad food. It’s just all about amounts. So it’s not that pizza is bad, it’s just very calorie-dense. A lot of those calories in a short period of time can slow you down.”
Physical Vs Psychological
He also believes that a lot of the struggles that fighters face, especially post-retirement, are psychological.
“My hypothesis is it’s more psychological than physiological. I think it’s more the psychology of having to restrict for so long. I think that that’s bad. Where I think if if you can introduce, proper eating habits and be like if you want to have a pizza once a week in camp, we can work that into it. So then when you finish camp, they don’t go I’m gonna go up to and eat pizza three times a day, every day for a week. Then all of a sudden they balloon up and they do that for weeks on it”
This problem of weight fluctuation in and out of competition is one that’s backed by research too. Dr Langan Evans said “We did a study not so long ago showing the kind of the weight fluctuations in a world champion boxer over five years. The older they were getting on, the more they were making weight, the more the more weight that they were putting on.”
Walking Into The Unknown
But despite the research, he also echoes the thoughts of Dr Connor with there being so little research into why this happens and whether it is physical or psychological.
“What I don’t know a lot of at the minute is how that’s regulated. Is it mentally regulated? As much as physiologically regulated? Is it a bit of both? I personally think it’s a bit of both, it’s probably the physiology signal and the psychological cognitive”
Although the issues of weight cutting and nutrition will never fully disappear within the sport both Dr Carl Lang Evans and Dr John Connor are doing their best to create a safer environment for athletes to make weight.
Dr Langan Evans- “I’m looking to engage and speak to a lot of these bodies and try to work with them to put things in place that will help fighters, particularly at the amateur level because if you think about the amateur level, you’re not on an England or a GB squad then you’re probably not going to get access to a nutritionist or this type of advice.”
Featured image credit to bbc.com