Joe Rogan argues extreme weight-cutting is a worse form of cheating than PEDs

UFC commentator Joe Rogan is not a fan of extreme weight-cutting — the practice of dehydrating oneself in order to make weight for a fight, then rapidly rehydrating to regain that weight, and carry a significant weight advantage into the cage. In his eyes, this practice is not only incredibly dangerous, it’s also a form of cheating more severe than performance enhancing drugs.

“It is stupid,” Rogan said on his podcast the Joe Rogan Experience (transcript via MMAMania). “What it is is sanctioned cheating. It’s sanctioned cheating and it’s cheating at a much higher scale even than PEDs. If you get two people and they both weigh 135 [pounds] but they’re both totally hydrated and one of them has been doing steroids and one of them hasn’t been doing steroids, the difference will be far less than if one person weighs in at 135 [pounds] but then balloons up to 160 [pounds] and then gets into that octagon at 160 [pounds] but there’s no PEDs involved. That’s a much greater advantage than someone whose doing some sort of testosterone thing or something. They’re compromised but the benefit of being so much larger might outweigh being compromised.

“Dude, if I was running shit, I’d fix that first. That would be the first thing I would fix.”

In Rogan’s eyes, other MMA promotions, including the UFC, should be following in the footsteps of ONE Championship with respect to weight cutting. Following the death of fighter Yang Jian Bing, the Singapore-based promotion banned dehydration-based weight-cutting, and implemented fight-week weight checks to assure fighters stay close to their natural weights.

“People push it, they do push it,” Rogan said. “ONE FC has laid out the ground work. Look at what they did with their hydration tests and implement that.”

What do you think of Joe Rogan’s take on weight-cutting in MMA?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/7/2018.