By Billie Sloane

In combat sports, the real fight often starts long before the athletes step into the ring or octagon. Before the first punch is thrown, many fighters engage in a dangerous game of brinkmanship, pushing their bodies to extreme limits just to hit a weight they won’t maintain for more than a few hours. Weight cuts—widely accepted as part of the sport—are an unrelenting, physically punishing process involving strict diets, dehydration, and hours spent sweating in saunas and baths. But are these practices necessary for fair competition, or is the tradition one that puts fighters in unnecessary danger?

As UFC’s Darren Till once put it in an interview:
"It’s torture. It’s not even like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a bit tough.’ It’s horrible. It’s scary. You feel like you’re gonna die. But if you don’t do it, someone else will, and you’ll be at a disadvantage."

It’s a problem that forces us to ask: Does this painful ritual uphold fairness, or is it an outdated hazard that endangers the very athletes it seeks to protect?

How Weight Cuts Really Work: The Step-by-Step Grind

The weight cut isn’t just a matter of eating less. Fighters often follow a two-step process: long-term dieting and short-term water depletion. Together, these tactics help them hit the required weight at the official weigh-in—usually scheduled a day or two before the fight. Here’s how it unfolds.

1. The Long-Term Diet: Weeks of Caloric Deficit
   In the weeks leading up to fight week, fighters slash their caloric intake to lose as much body fat and muscle mass as possible. They follow highly restrictive diets, cutting out carbs, sugars, and sodium-rich foods, all while training intensely. Many consume just enough calories to fuel their workouts, often leading to fatigue, dizziness, and weakened immune systems. Some fighters hire nutritionists to structure their meals, but others attempt this process on their own, risking severe nutrient deficiencies. 

Why? The aim is to shed “natural” weight through fat loss so that when fight week arrives, they’ll only need to cut water weight to make the final push to the weigh-in limit.

1. Fight Week: Water Loading and Dehydration
   The real punishment begins in the final days before the weigh-in, when the focus shifts from dieting to dehydration. Fighters engage in “water loading,” a controversial method where they deliberately overhydrate—drinking up to two gallons (7-8 liters) of water per day—only to suddenly cut back to zero water intake two days before the weigh-in. This shocks the body into flushing out excess water.

The Final Push:

• Sweat Suits: Fighters wear rubber or plastic suits designed to trap heat, leading them to sweat profusely.

• Saunas and Steam Rooms: Hours are spent sitting in steam rooms or saunas, sometimes multiple times per day, to force water out of the body.

• Salt Baths: Epsom salt baths at high temperatures are another extreme tool. Fighters soak until they lose enough water weight to see changes on the scale.

• Spitting and Diuretics: Some fighters resort to spitting into bottles for hours, while others use laxatives and diuretics to shed the last few ounces—often dangerously compromising kidney function.

Chris Eubank Jr. recalled the toll this process takes:
"You sit in a sauna with your body screaming at you to stop, but you know you can’t. You’re not a fighter in that moment. You’re just trying to survive until you hit the number on the scale."

1. The Weigh-In: Hitting the Target
   If everything goes to plan, the fighter hits their weight target at the official weigh-in. Some fighters step onto the scale barely able to stand, muscles cramping from dehydration, their faces sunken from weeks of food and water restriction. But the moment the weigh-in ends, the focus shifts to rapid rehydration and refueling. Fighters binge on water, sports drinks, electrolyte solutions, and high-carb meals to regain as much lost weight as possible before fight night.

Rehydration Clauses: Some promoters include rehydration clauses in contracts, limiting how much weight a fighter can regain after weigh-ins. While these clauses aim to keep things fair, they can backfire—forcing fighters to stay dehydrated longer than usual, further increasing the risks.

"It’s like trying to bring a dead man back to life in 24 hours," said Kell Brook. "You spend weeks killing yourself to make weight, and then you’ve got one day to undo all that damage. It’s mad."

The Health Risks: A Slow Gamble with the Body

Cutting weight isn’t just uncomfortable—it’s medically dangerous. The human body relies on water for almost every essential function, and extreme dehydration puts vital organs at risk. The kidneys and liver, responsible for filtering toxins and maintaining electrolyte balance, often suffer the most. If pushed too far, fighters risk acute kidney failure—a condition in which the kidneys stop functioning properly, requiring immediate medical intervention.

But the dangers don’t stop there.

1. Brain Trauma and Reduced Protection
   Perhaps the most dangerous effect of dehydration is what it does to the brain. The brain is cushioned by cerebrospinal fluid, which acts as a shock absorber against impact. When fighters dehydrate themselves, the levels of this fluid drop significantly, making the brain more vulnerable to concussions and traumatic brain injuries. In a sport where knockouts are celebrated, reducing this protective barrier is like removing the airbag from a race car.

As Carl Froch once warned:
"When your brain’s not got enough fluid, it rattles around in your skull. One clean shot to the head, and you’re done. That’s the reality of weight cutting—some lads are putting their lives on the line."

1. Slowed Reaction Time and Cognitive Decline
   Dehydration also affects mental acuity. Fighters often report feeling foggy, sluggish, or confused during intense weight cuts. This cognitive slowdown not only impacts their performance but also increases their risk of injury. A delayed reaction in a fight can mean the difference between blocking a punch and suffering a knockout. 

Josh Taylor, a former world champion, described it well:
"You think you’re fine after rehydrating, but your mind is still not sharp. That split-second delay—it can cost you everything."

1. Organ Damage and Hospitalization
   Fighters who push the limits of weight cutting often end up in emergency rooms with kidney damage, electrolyte imbalances, or heat stroke. MMA fighter Uriah Hall famously collapsed during a weight cut, resulting in hospitalization and a canceled fight. In extreme cases, like that of Leandro Souza, the consequences are fatal. Souza passed away just hours before a fight, struggling to shed the last few pounds of his weight cut.

Why Do Fighters Keep Doing It? The Strategy Behind the Madness

If weight cuts are so dangerous, why do fighters continue to put themselves through it? The answer lies in the competitive edge. When fighters dehydrate themselves to meet a weight requirement, they aim to regain all that lost weight before the fight—stepping into the ring bigger, stronger, and heavier than their opponent. Fighters who compete at their walk-around weight often face competitors who look like they belong in a higher weight class, putting them at a distinct disadvantage.

As Amir Khan explained:
"Everyone’s doing it. If you don’t, you’ll be the smaller guy in there, and size matters. No one wants to fight at a disadvantage, so we all play the game—even though we know it’s dangerous."

Below the heavyweight division, every fighter is chasing the same goal: to be the biggest competitor in the smallest weight class. It’s a game of brinksmanship—cut as much weight as you can without collapsing, and then rehydrate fast enough to gain the upper hand. This strategy can mean the difference between winning a title or ending up on the canvas.

At the same time, fighters are stuck in a paradox: they feel forced to cut weight because everyone else does it. If they don’t follow the same strategy, they risk being overpowered by larger opponents. The problem isn’t just the individual fighter’s choice—it’s the system that rewards those willing to go to extremes.

The Other Side: Bigger Foes, Bigger Risks

But here’s the other jab in this argument: without weight cuts, fighters risk stepping into the ring against opponents with a massive size and strength advantage. If fighters had to compete at their walk-around weight—what they weigh naturally—many of them would find themselves overpowered by taller, heavier fighters. Imagine a lightweight boxer forced to battle someone naturally closer to middleweight. In a sport where precision, speed, and strength are measured in fractions of a second, any physical disadvantage can tilt the odds dangerously against the smaller fighter.

Anthony Crolla put it simply:
"If there were no weight cuts, we’d end up with natural middleweights fighting lightweights. That’s not safe either. You’ve got to find a way to even things out—but weight cuts aren’t the answer either."

While heavyweights escape the burden of weight cutting—they fight without a cap—every other weight class below is engaged in an arms race of physique. Fighters obsess over squeezing into the smallest possible weight category where they can have a size advantage on fight night. It’s not just about strategy—it’s about survival in a system that incentivizes being the biggest competitor in the smallest class. But as fighters push themselves closer to their limits, the line between calculated risk and reckless endangerment becomes blurred.

Fixing the System: Should Fighters Weigh in When They Sign?

So how do we fix it? One radical solution is forcing fighters to compete at the weight they sign their contract for. If a fighter naturally walks around at 180 pounds, they should fight at 180—no dangerous water cuts or last-minute starvation. This would remove the unhealthy pressure to shrink down to unsustainable sizes, forcing fighters to focus on skills and fitness rather than the sauna and the scale.

"It sounds great," said Liam Smith, "but what happens when someone cheats the system? You’d still have fighters trying to find an edge, and then we’re back where we started."

But such a change wouldn’t be without controversy. Fighters fear that without the ability to manipulate their weight, they’d be forced into higher classes where they might face stronger, bigger opponents. This has led some promoters to experiment with rehydration clauses—stipulating that fighters cannot gain more than a certain percentage of weight after weigh-ins. While designed to limit dangerous fluctuations, these clauses come with their own risks: if fighters stay partially dehydrated to meet the next day’s weight checks, it can leave them even more vulnerable to injury in the ring.

The Final Bell: A Call for Change

So what’s the solution? Should the sport rethink the weight class system and ban extreme weight cuts? Or would that just open the door to even more dangerous mismatches between fighters of vastly different sizes? The debate is far from over, but one thing is clear: the current system is flirting with disaster. Combat sports are already brutal enough without forcing fighters to compromise their health before the first bell even rings.

"The sport needs to change," said Carl Frampton. "But it won’t happen until someone else dies trying to make weight. And that’s the saddest part of all."

Fair competition is important, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of an athlete’s life. Weight cutting has become an unhealthy tradition, but with the right reforms, the sport can evolve. Whether it’s stricter weight checks, bans on extreme water cuts, or forcing fighters to compete at their natural weight, the industry needs to act before the next tragedy strikes. Because in a sport where honor and discipline matter, protecting fighters from themselves should always come first.