Matt Brown has spent almost his entire career competing as a welterweight, but in reality, he knows his body isn’t actually built to set foot on a scale at 170 pounds.

Despite going through dozens of weight cuts, the 43-year-old veteran admits that every experience has been different in some way and he’s endured plenty of mistakes over the years. That’s why Brown knows that two-time PFL lightweight champion Kayla Harrison likely has an arduous journey awaiting her as she prepares to compete as a bantamweight for the first time ever.

No matter how much work she’s done to get ready, Brown cautions Harrison that she’s almost certainly going to go through hell as she sheds those last few pounds with her body desperate for food and water.

“We always talk about this doing it the right way. There’s no right way to almost kill yourself,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “You’re not supposed to be that dehydrated. I know my lean body mass. I know how hydrated I am. I know all these details about my body. I’m not supposed to be 170 pounds. It’s simply not healthy for me. I would put money Kayla Harrison is not supposed to be 135 pounds.

“So no matter how perfect you do everything, those last few pounds suck horribly. You can literally do the entire thing perfect, exactly what every world class scientist tells you to do, all the research is perfect, you practiced 100 times, whatever. It will f***** suck, period. Your body is not supposed to do what you are doing to it.”

Harrison debuts at UFC 300 against former champion Holly Holm after spending the majority of her fighting career at 155 pounds. Prior to that, Harrison claimed a pair of gold medals at 78kg — approximately 172 pounds — in the Olympics.

She has fought at featherweight once previously and UFC CEO Dana White already stated that Harrison has gone through several test cuts to prove she can get down to bantamweight. That all sounds great but Brown knows from plenty of personal experience that all the preparation in the world can still backfire on you.

“You feel a little different every time,” Brown said. “A lot of that’s the lead up, not just the week of the weight cut, fight week. Not even necessarily the week before but the five, six weeks leading to it. All that time leading up to it plays a part where how adapted is your body to being depleted? How much energy are you expending? Did you water load properly? Also a lot of times, it’s the location you go to. For instance, I fought in Brazil one time and there’s no sauna there and it was a very, very long flight to get there or when I fought in Abu Dhabi, that was a really, really hard weight cut because I was jetlagged and not really feeling energetic all week, and the time difference threw everything off.

“There’s a lot more pieces to that puzzle than just simply you’re cutting weight and everything’s good.”

Even if Harrison has her weight cut down to a science, Brown expects all that preparation will almost certainly go out the door when she’s sweating off those last few pounds.

Through 35 career fights and nearly 16 years in the UFC, Brown can’t deny that weight cutting has probably pushed him to the breaking point more than anything that’s ever happened in the cage.

“All that s***, when you get down to the last five pounds, it sucks, period,” Brown said. “It doesn’t matter what you did. It’s just simply going to suck and you’re going to have to push yourself and all of your mettle’s going to be tested. Your mind’s going to be tested. Your will’s going to be tested.”

As much as Harrison will be offered advice from other fighters in the days and weeks leading up to her UFC debut, Brown says there’s no perfect way to go about weight cutting.

For instance, Brown revealed that the team from the UFC Performance Institute provides athletes with supplements that help with rehydration after weight cuts but it just doesn’t work for him.

“I tried that s*** once and it did terrible for me,” Brown explained. “Now I just drink water. That’s just what I want is some f****** water. I don’t need all your supplements and all this bulls***. Give me some damn water and I’ll be good.”

Brown won’t even attempt to give Harrison some lesson in best practices when it comes to the weight cut she’s about to endure but he will offer her one piece of advice that he’s found invaluable.

It’s the same thing he tells his fighters when they’re suffering through those last few hours and the last few pounds before getting on the scale.

“I would give the same advice in just about any very difficult venture that you’re going to do and that’s just about keeping a positive mind,” Brown said.

“It’s the hardest time that I can think of to keep your mind positive and focus on the goal. You start really questioning whether you can do, whether it’s physically possible. I’ve been there where you start wondering like how healthy is it? Am I going to f****** die in here? That’s why I’ve never been a fan of locking guys in saunas and s***. When I’m helping other people weight cutting, I’m just trying to be positive the whole time. That’s all you can do. That’s the only advice I can give. Keep your mind positive.”

Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio

MMA Fighting – All Posts

No more questions about fingers, palms, or load-bearing weight. CSAC head Andy Foster wants hands out of the grounded fighter calculation all together.

The California State Athletic Commission has announced plans to get rid of some of the stupidest rules in mixed martial arts.

That’s according to CSAC head Andy Foster, who seems like one of the last forward-thinking commission heads in the United States. Over the years, Foster has done things like implemented a pension fund for MMA fighters. He barred California judges from working events on opposite sides of the country over one weekend after some terrible scores were turned in. He also set up rules in 2019 to try and stop extreme weight cutting.

If a fighter weighs more than 15% above the contracted weight on fight day, their bout will be canceled. If they’re close to the limit, CSAC bans them from their current weight class. Good, solid rule changes. But maybe a bit too much complication for the UFC?

Since 2019, the UFC has only returned to California twice. That’s right: UFC 298 on February 17th will be just their third event in the Golden State in the last five years. Maybe that’s why they were willing to sanction Dana White Power Slap in the state.

The latest positive change Foster hopes to implement in combat sports will be put forward at the next Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) meeting. That means the rules will change in every state using the Unified Rules, rather than just in California. In an interview with The MMA Hour, Foster said it was time to change the grounded opponent rules so fighters stopped gaming the system by putting a hand on the canvas.

“We’re going to get rid of the hand. That’s my proposal. We’re going to get rid of it,” he told Ariel Helwani. “If you want to be down, you need to put something else down. Knee, back, anything. Anything other than — you can’t be standing up, putting your hand on the ground. It’s caused too much confusion.”

“A rule that we put in for safety has in fact created an unsafe environment, and it’s created an untenable environment for referees to regulate this. They all view it differently.”

The safety issue comes from fighters intentionally putting themselves in extremely dangerous situations thinking they’ll be protected from knees and kicks. Look at Arnold Allen vs. Movsar Evloev from UFC 297: Evloev ate multiple knees to the face because he was busy trying to keep his hand on the canvas instead of defending himself. Valentina Shevchenko did the same thing against Alexa Grasso at Noche UFC.

Another rule that needs to go, according to Foster? The infamous 12-6 downward elbow.

“It’s just silly,” he said. “That rule is just, what about 11-5, if we’re going to use the clock? Or 1-7? Those aren’t illegal. 3-9 is an awful hard strike from side control, but that’s not banned. It doesn’t make any sense, is the point I’m trying to make.”

“Either you ban elbows or you allow them. This is the only one that’s not, and it’s poorly enforced. Hardly ever is it enforced, and when it is enforced, it’s enforced wrong. And you certainly shouldn’t have people being DQ’d over this. You go back and you have people arguing, ‘Well, it wasn’t straight down.’ I’ve had all this. This rule is untenable as well. Terrible thing we’ve put our referees in. We should not have rules on the books that are clearly unenforceable.”

Somewhere out there, Jon Jones is nodding in agreement.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Tyron Woodley is “The Chosen One” for a reason.

When it was announced that the former UFC welterweight champion was set to box Jake Paul in August 2021, it was a pretty decent surprise for the combat sports world. Paul was heading into his fourth pro match after knocking out Woodley’s fellow former MMA welterweight champion Ben Askren. Meanwhile, Woodley had recently left the UFC after a four-fight losing streak.

In the end, Paul defeated Woodley twice consecutively, first by split decision before a devastating sixth-round knockout at the end of that year. Paul, 27, has fought four times since then and won thrice, but Woodley ultimately believes without his role in “The Problem Child’s” career, there’d still be doubters aplenty.

“Jake respected me and was kind of a fan of me in MMA, right?” Woodley told Demetrious Johnson. “He understood that I’m the one that gave Jake Paul credibility. Don’t get it f***** up. Not Nate Robinson, not Anderson [Silva], not Nate [Diaz], not Tommy Fury. None of those guys did. Because I called him out culture to culture. I’m the one that had the big press conference with him. I did the most numbers with him, and when you look at the fight, I’m the one that really had the ability to hurt him. I’m the only one that really hurt him in the fights, right?

“By him beating me and coming back and knocking me out after we had a close fight, which most people thought I won, that gave him the credibility. ‘Okay, I guess he a real fighter now.’”

The Paul vs. Woodley rematch was never initially in the cards after the original encounter. Instead, it was to be the eventual Fury match, which resulted in Paul’s lone career loss via split decision last February. Unfortunately for Fury, medical reasons forced him to withdraw from that first planned December 2021 date which led to Woodley stepping in on relatively short notice.

From a financial standpoint, Woodley revealed that the first Paul match outcome had a greater effect than just another loss on his record.

“I was mad too, s***, I wasn’t happy,” Woodley said of the first loss. “In the negotiation, because [MVP Promoter] Nakisa Bidarian worked for the UFC, he said some things private to me that, as a man, I don’t speak about business outside of there, but he said reasons why he didn’t want to negotiate with me to try and take me down on numbers. So, really what I asked for is what I got. I set the bar because everybody else got the same person I got, or they got higher when it was in Saudi [Arabia]. Saudi amplified that. You can add another five million on there when you go to Saudi, right? It’s crazy.

“On the second time around, my fight purse was dumb on the rematch clause. That’s why I was so mad. I thought I won the first fight so I should have been fighting again on the rematch clause. When I fought him again, it wasn’t on the rematch clause, because I didn’t win, according to the judges. I would have made over double the amount of money I made the first time. I got paid nice the first time, then we both would have been the A-side.”

TOP STORIES

Debut. Holly Holm unlikely to fight at UFC 300 if Kayla Harrison is over 135 pounds: ‘You need to make weight’

Memories. Luke Rockhold recounts sparring session with ‘loud mouth idiot’ Sean Strickland

Updates. CSAC Director Andy Foster explains new grounded fighter rule proposal: ‘It’s caused too much confusion’

Patience. Michael Chandler: Wait for Conor McGregor frustrating, but also blessing in disguise

Knuckles. John Dodson books flyweight title fight in main event at BKFC 59 in Albuquerque

Answers. Monday Mailbag: Conor McGregor in Road House, and the Mount Rushmore of MMA fighters-turned-actors

VIDEO STEW

The MMA Hour.

Road to UFC 2.

Best finishes from Road to UFC 2.

Free fight.

PFL vs. Bellator Pre-Fighter Presser highlights.

ONE Friday Fights 49 highlights.

Top 10 UFC KOs of 2023.

Alexander Volkanovski and … Tom Brady?

MORNING MUSIC

SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Champ.

Whatever works.

Here we go again.

Well.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Man. It feels somewhat hard to say who gave Jake the most credibility. Honestly, I don’t really care because none of them say all too much. I guess the answer is probably Anderson purely from an overall — or specifically — striking perspective.

Thanks for reading!

EXIT POLL

If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @DrakeRiggs_ on Twitter and let him know about it. Also, follow MMAFighting on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Dana White claims ‘journeyman’ Jim Miller has made millions through his time in the UFC. 

Miller has competed in an astounding 43 UFC contests and is set to compete at UFC 300 after competing on both the 100 and 200 cards. The 40-year-old has taken on a litany of notable fighters throughout his 15 years with the promotion, including the likes of Dustin Poirier, Benson Henderson and Nate Diaz.  

UFC CEO, White claims that Jim Miller has been well compensated for his work, appearing on The TRUTH Podcast White stated that Miller had earned ‘millions’ despite the fact ‘If you ask most people, they wouldn’t know who Jim Miller is’.

When you become a champion, you become a partner. You share in the pay-per-view (PPV) revenue,” White began. “Boxing does [it too]. Whoever is the champion in boxing, you get the lion’s share of the revenue. Here, it’s dispersed through across everybody. (H/T MMA Mania)

Dana White talks Jim Miller’s finances from fighting

“We got a guy right now who’s 40 years old and he’s on this hot streak, man. His name’s Jim Miller,” White continued. “He’s been around forever. He’s been around since like we bought the company and he’s still fighting. He’s gonna fight on UFC 300 and this is a guy who’s been — I guess you could call him a journeyman in boxing, right? If you ask most people, they wouldn’t know who Jim Miller is, and the guy’s made millions of dollars.”

“He’s never made it to that level [of UFC champion]. Guys who would be considered journeymen in boxing never make that kind of money ever.”

It’s a little unfair to boil down Miller’s career to simply being a journeyman and comparing him to people with similar records in boxing. While there may be a crossover in fans, MMA and boxing are different sports and wins and losses mean different things in the respective sport. It’s also not like Miller hasn’t ever fought at a ‘high level’, firstly competing in the UFC for so long says enough about someone’s ability, but Miller has also been ranked. 

What do you think of Dana White’s comments on Jim Miller?

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Perhaps the bar was set a bit too high for UFC 300?

UFC CEO Dana White promised an “insane” card filled to the brim with must-watch fights, and though we’re still eagerly awaiting main event news, most of the lineup is now filled, and it’s … good? I’d even hazard to say really good! The Strawweight belt and the BMF belt are on the line, and fan favorite former champions like Jiri Prochazka and Charles Oliveira round out the rest of the main card. It’s hard to call it the most insane fight card ever, however, when UFC 299 is equally as stacked.

Ranked UFC Lightweight contender, Renato Moicano, isn’t overly impressed. The Brazilian has turned his professional fighting career into a side gig as a popular YouTube host, which means he’s spending more time watching and judging UFC cards than many of his peers. According to “Money” Moicano, there’s just something left to be desired.

“For me, I will be honest as a fan, you know, and as a YouTuber, UFC 300 is not that great,” he explained on The MMA Hour (via SportsKeeda). “I will be honest with you, it’s not that great. It’s good like I say for me, the only fight that I’m interested here is Justin Gaethje -Max Holloway. Calvin Kattar and (Aljamain) Sterling, Charles (Oliveira) and (Arman) Tsarukyan, Bobby Green-Jim Miller, for me personally.”

Alas, Moicano will not likely have an opportunity to improve the UFC 300 event. He’s scheduled to return to action this weekend (Sat. Feb. 3, 2024) in the co-main event of UFC Vegas 85, where he’ll take on veteran knockout artist Drew Dober. And if you’re thinking of heading into the comments to knock Moicano for judging UFC 300 while he’s stuck fighting inside the UFC Apex, well …

Moicano would probably agree with you.

Insomnia

How does Khamzat Chimaev look on the mitts?

Anecdotes like this and the mentality behind them are a great demonstration of why Cory Sandhagen has improved so much in the last few years.

Foot sweeps are a universal technique.

Mike Perry is one of only a handful of MMA fighters whose crackhead fighting stories I instantly believe.

Just a couple of guys being dudes.

Imagine being this slick.

Josh Emmett’s knockout over Bryce Mitchell immortalized in paint.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Takeru vs. Superlek was absolutely the banger that was promised, so let’s get some other “Natural Born Crusher” highlights flowing!

Left uppercut-left liver shot is such a great combo.

Getting flashy doesn’t always pay off.

Random Land

A wild feat of athleticism.

Midnight Music: Alternative rock, 1992

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

It’s all or nothing for Henry Cejudo at UFC 298.

Nine months after failing to reclaim the bantamweight title in his return to the Octagon, ‘Triple C’ will look to score himself another shot at UFC gold on February 17. But to do so, he has to go through one of the most feared fighters at 135, Merab Dvalishvili.

With a win, Cejudo sees his next fight being against the winner of UFC 299’s showdown between bantamweight titleholder Sean O’Malley and Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera. But a loss against ‘The Machine’ will likely send the Olympic gold medalist into retirement for the second and final time.

“This is for the No. 1 contender spot,” Cejudo told The HJR Experiment. “I think to have to lose it to Aljamain … I think if I was going to go maybe down the ladder, I would probably be done with fighting again because it’s just like the sport is hard, man. Training camps, having two kids, and things like that. … It’s all or nothing, man.”

Henry Cejudo Says Fighting Is Not Always About The Love of the Sport

Cejudo currently occupies the No. 3 spot in the bantamweight rankings, one behind Dvalishivili and two under former division champ Aljamain Sterling. With the ‘Funk Master’ making the move to featherweight later this year, he’s expected to relinquish his spot at the top.

‘Triple C’ returned at UFC 288 last year, challenging Sterling for the 135-pound crown. Cejudo came up short, losing on two of the three judges’ scorecards.

“It’s more of a motivation of vengeance,” Cejudo continued. “It’s not always the love. Even coming back to the sport, I was like, ‘I want to test myself.’ I like the matchup. It has been three years, but it was also the financial compensation. I mean, there’s nothing easier to make money than the fight game” (h/t MMA Mania).

LowKickMMA.com