5 times that moving down in weight backfired for a UFC star
The UFC is a difficult place to thrive in and so its fighters naturally face plenty of peaks and troughs during their time with the promotion.
Many UFC fighters have made the call to move down in weight in order to chase success. While that can be a path to the top for some, others have seen the move backfire on them greatly.
TJ Dillashaw is looking absolutely shredded one month before his #UFC flyweight title fight with Henry Cejudo. I think it’s safe to say our concerns, and Demetrious Johnson’s, that he may not make 125lbs were misplaced.
DJ should’ve taken the fight when it was on the table. https://t.co/f9KQ99tUif
Sometimes suffering due to a huge weight cut, or by finding that the strengths they had in their higher weight class have been negated, it’s never good when it happens to a fighter and can often lead to a violent defeat.
With that in mind, here are five times that moving down in weight backfired for a UFC star.
#5. Cody Garbrandt – bantamweight to flyweight (UFC 269)
The most recent entry on this list comes from last weekend’s UFC 269. Former UFC bantamweight kingpin Cody Garbrandt’s attempt at becoming a title contender at flyweight blew up in his face pretty badly.
The move was a curious one from the offset. Garbrandt was hardly on a slide at 135 pounds, as he returned to action in 2020 with an exceptional win over Raphael Assuncao and was only edged out by high-level contender Rob Font this summer.
More to the point, it felt like ‘No Love’ would only be risking an already questionable chin by embarking on a huge weight cut. It also felt like the move to 125 pounds might negate his main strength at bantamweight – his speed.
Garbrandt made the flyweight limit with no issues at the event’s weigh-in, but he definitely looked skeletal, which was hardly a surprise given he had already been ripped at 135 pounds. Unfortunately, while he looked confident coming into his clash with Kai Kara-France, he simply didn’t look himself once the octagon door was locked.
Kara-France quickly tagged him with heavy punches, knocking him down twice in the early going. ‘No Love’ could simply not recover. Moments later, ‘Don’t Blink’ caught him with another clean combination and put him away for good.
DON'T BLINK 👀
[ @KaiKaraFrance | #UFC269 ] https://t.co/D3gP2juBmV
Quite whether Garbrandt can ever recover from this loss is anyone’s guess right now, but there’s no disputing that this was the worst loss of his UFC career and the move to flyweight was probably a mistake.