UFC champ Alex Pereira is an absolute unit, walking around at 230 lbs while fighting in the 205 lbs division. But what’s even crazier is that he used to compete at 185 pounds, in the middleweight division, which means, at one point, he’s probably had to cut about 50 lbs in the lead-up to a fight! What’s the secret sauce?
Let’s be real, whatever it is, probably isn’t the safest approach for most people. While every fighter has their own way of cutting weight, Pereira’s method appears to be quite intense and the results sound borderline dangerous.
Regardless, he seems to have done surprisingly well. Speaking to Mark Bouris, the champ revealed just how much weight he has to lose before the ceremonial weigh-ins and said, “It takes me about 4 hours to lose 10 kilos (22 lbs). They have a method that they can use which helps me lose very quickly. It takes less than a week for me to lose all that weight.”
View this post on Instagram
While he gains back some of the weight on fight night, the cut itself can cause severe damage to the body.
His coach, Plinio Cruz, had previously highlighted the challenges Pereira faced during his rematch against Israel Adesanya, noting that he had to cut a total of 40 lbs for that fight.
Cruz explained that this drastic weight cut meant losing significant fluids, including those from the brain, which could impact a fighter’s tolerance to strikes. This could be the reason Pereira folded rather easily to Izzy’s punches.
During his appearance on Rampage Jackson’s podcast, the coach claimed that in the lead-up to the fight, Pereira’s weight had started picking up naturally because he had been grappling for a while.
Explaining that weight cuts were easier during his kickboxing days, Cruz said, “Throughout the camp, he was already getting to the size of a 205-pounder. He had to…lose 20 pounds to get to the day of the cut, so he was about 40 pounds heavier a month before the fight.“
While weight cuts are an undeniably brutal part of the sport, according to Daniel Cormier, the change in techniques seems to have made it a lot tougher.
DC explains the horrors of modern weight-cutting
Everyone knows DC was a part of the US wrestling team at the Olympics in 2004 and 2008. But did you know that in 2008, he had to pull from the competition due to excessive kidney failure; a result of his excessive weight-cutting?
So, more than anybody in the UFC, he understands the value of proper technique, diets, and doctors to go through such a strenuous process. And he believes what modern fighters do these days is so much worse than anything his generation used to do.
Speaking to Joe Rogan a few years ago, DC called it the most dangerous thing in the world. Explaining his point of view further, the former UFC double champ said, “With us, we would go on Thursday night. If I weighed 216 lbs and I had to be 205 lbs by Friday morning, I would try to get as low as I possibly could and then try to go to bed. So, I get to 207, then I would hope, by the morning I would be 206 and would only have to lose a pound.”
However, that is not the case with fighters now. DC claims today’s fighters are going to bed at a weight, where they have to wake up in the morning and still lose 10-12 lbs.
“They say, if they cut that weight, they cannot sleep, which I can attest to“, he added but countered by explaining that this left the fighters having to else about 10 lbs in 4 hours, which is really dangerous to their bodies.
Now imagine, Pereira losing 10 kgs in 4 hours!
