A Sol Kwon (left) faced a highly questionable penalty after missing weight in his scheduled bout with Giovanni Diniz at ROAD FC – Korea 003.
Talk to a fighter, and he or she will be more than happy to tell you that the hardest part of fighting is doing a weight-cut.
Let’s face it — it’s not an easy thing to do by any standards. It takes knowledge, skill and practice.
Sure, most fighters are true professionals and they don’t ever miss weight. But then of course, you have the occasional bad apples who fail to hit their marks on more than one occasion.
Despite multiple proven and effective ways of cutting weight properly, we still regularly witness fighters missing their contracted limits. That’s not only conspicuous in the United States, it happens all over the world.
Now, the point is, how do some promotions actually handle such matters?
A Sol Kwon missed weight at the weigh-ins held for ROAD FC – Korea 003 over the weekend, coming in 3.65-lbs/1.65kg over the 155-lbs mark. The repercussions of that mistake were needless to say — harsh. The promotion stipulated that Kwon had to maintain his weight below 78kg/171.96-lbs prior to the fight (the limit was set at 8:00pm local time), and would be deducted two points per round. In addition, the 29-year-old was to also forgo his fight money, which effectively meant he was fighting for free.
Lee Hyung-Seok’s punishment wasn’t as severe, but it was still bad on all accounts. Despite missing the mark by only 100g/0.22-lbs, the South Korean was still fined a whopping 50% of his fight purse.
I’m not defending these fighters by a long shot. It’s their contracted responsibility to make weight, and since they did not, they deserved to face some form of stiff punishment. However, there has to be a fundamental fairness on how the promotion handles such penalties.
The excess poundage is understandably seen as a sign of disrespect, not only to the missed-weight fighter’s opponent, but to the fans in general. Truth be told, opponents reserve the right to be angry when their adversaries fail to make weight. After all, they, themselves, have worked hard to fulfill their part on hitting the required limit.
The song about commissions and/or promotions needing to step up their game when it comes to fighters missing weight has been heard many times. But in the case of ROAD FC, they may have have taken a step too far in their dealing(s) with unprofessional pro fighters.
To do something about incidents of poor weight management is one thing, but for a promotion to impose really harsh stipulations on fighters, is another.
But it wouldn’t be wise for ROAD FC to follow the laws of the UFC either.
The UFC, for instance, issues a 20 percent penalty to the offending fighter’s fight purse, which will be given to his/her opponent. The bout will then be offered to be turned into a Catchweight contest, so that the fighter on weight can keep the entire 20 percent, otherwise the fine is split with the commission at 10 percent a piece.
In my humble opinion, the current 20 percent price tag won’t speak loudly enough to make sure some fighters get the message.
While repeated offenders of the failed weight-cut regimen will befittingly pay the ultimate price of getting axed, fighters may still take this below-moderate consequence with a pinch of salt, since post-fight bonuses and such are still in place.
In speeding tickets, the more someone speeds, the bigger the fine will be. It would be sensible for ROAD FC to adopt a similar approach. If a fighter misses weight by 1-2 pounds, impose a 20% fine. Did he miss by 3-5 pounds? Get in a 30% penalty on his fight purse then. Everything after that can subsequently be increased to 40%, and so on.
Scratching the infringing fighter’s Win, Knockout or Submission of the Night bonuses could work as well, but when all is said and done, discarding fighters of their fight purses, or imposing really punitive punishments, won’t sit well with future combatants looking to get exclusive contracts in the long run.
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