A new proposal aimed to address extreme weight cutting practices in combat sports will be introduced at the Association of Boxing Commissions annual convention this weekend in Orlando.
The potential policy changes, which would require a majority vote by ABC members to go into effect, call for a second-day weigh-in ahead of all sanctioned championship fights in boxing.
During this second weigh-in, which would take place the morning of the fight, athletes would not be allowed to weigh more than 10 percent over the contracted weight. If an athlete fails to comply, the contest would still go on, but that athlete would be ineligible to win the championship.
Additionally, offenders would forfeit at least 10 percent of their contracted purse, face the potential of a suspension and, perhaps most notably, be removed from the rankings of all sanctioning bodies until they successfully make weight at a future bout.
“We’re not asking for the moon — 10 percent is a big number,” Foster told ESPN. “If a fight is 147 pounds, for example, fighters have 14.7 pounds of rehydration to work with. The problem is that based on our data, we have a significant amount of fighters who are coming in more than that.
“Another thing we’re going to do, and we feel this is extremely important, is we’re going to put into language somewhere that extreme weight cutting is cheating. Until someone labels this for what it is, it’s not considered cheating. We’re going to do that, and we’re trying to do it this year.”
Earlier this year, Foster held a weight cutting summit with boxing sanctioning bodies in WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF. The ABC has authority under boxing’s Muhammad Ali Act to implement these changes on its own, but the sanctioning bodies have generally expressed support for it.
Some measures are already in place in the sport of boxing. The IBF, for example, implements a second-day weigh-in, but waives it for unified title fights involving more than one sanctioning body. The WBC uses 30-day and 7-day weigh-ins to monitor athletes’ weight.
“California and the ABC held a summit, which we participated in with great enthusiasm and expressed our full support,” said WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman. “The WBC will fully collaborate and support.”
Extreme weight cutting remains an issue in all combat sports, however. Just this month, a WBC junior welterweight title fight was canceled at the last minute when challenger Danny O’Connor was hospitalized for severe dehydration as he attempted to cut weight.
“We have to address what we can address and this is a step in the right direction,” Foster said. “If you miss weight, you get kicked out of the ratings. I think that’s generally a good, basic idea. That should have been happening a long time ago.”
One concern around a second-day weigh-in is that it may encourage athletes to cut weight the day of a fight. Foster says he understands that concern but ultimately believes athletes will trend towards coming into fight week lighter, as opposed to cutting weight that close to a contest.
If the ABC passes the new proposal, it would not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2019. Both Foster and Mazzulli, who is also the ABC president, said they are optimistic the proposal will pass.
As far as addressing the same issue in mixed martial arts — where weight cutting culture is arguably worse — the ABC does not hold the authority to issue a unilateral change as it does in boxing.
That said, Foster and Mazzulli have taken measures within their own jurisdictions to curb weight cutting in MMA and believe all combat sports are headed for a day when extreme weight cutting is treated as essentially performance enhancing.
“It’s baby steps right now,” Mazzulli said. “We’re doing this in boxing and we know it needs to happen in MMA as well. We need to start somewhere, and part of this is educating the fighters so they know this is going to happen. Just like the culture around drug testing years ago, they are going to know they can’t cheat on this. This is a starting point, and I believe we will have the votes to get it done.”