Chael Sonnen disagrees with Joe Rogan that Alex Pereira takes advantage of being a heavyset middleweight
Chael Sonnen recently opposed Joe Rogan's claims that Alex Pereira being a heavyset middleweight is "sanctioned cheating."
To provide some context, athletes across various combat sports attempt to compete against a lighter opponent by losing body mass prior to being weighed for the scheduled bout. Combatants then rehydrate in the 24 to 36 hour window before the fight to arrive significantly heavier than the weight category's upper limit on competition day.
UFC color commentator Joe Rogan has been severely critical of extreme weight cutting, even going as far as to claim that it is is more advantageous than taking PEDs. Most recently, on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE #1900) with Steve-O, Rogan spoke about how "sanctioned cheating" worked in Alex Pereira's favor against Israel Adesanya at UFC 281.
Chael Sonnen used his experience from competing as a wrestler and mixed martial artist to debate Joe Rogan's claim on his YouTube channel:
"I don't see very often in my life the guy that pulls the most weight has the greatest return. I know their careers are a lot shorter. I just grew up in the world of wrestling. The guy in high school that pulled the most weight, did not go on to wrestle in college."
Claims that weight cycling has a subsequent advantage on the athlete’s ability to perform on competition day lacks substantial evidence. While speaking about his days competing in the UFC, Chael Sonnen stated that weighing in above the limit (at 202 lbs.) on fight night never proved to be advantageous for him.
With all that in mind, Sonnen added:
"Cheating is a hell of a thing to say to a guy. Sanctioned cheating is a hell of a thing to say to a guy. There is a discussion of hydration testers, discussion of body-mass indexes, checking these things on certain days...that is done in other sports [but] that isn't done here. If a rule doesn't exist, then the violation couldn't happen and no cheating took place. I would like to challenge Joe just to go a step forward and tell me about the advantage. What advantage can you fundamentally prove was given?"
Catch Chael Sonnen's take on Joe Rogan's comments below:
Joe Rogan once claimed that extreme weight cutting is more advantageous for an athlete than use of PEDs
Weight cutting and rehydration is a hot topic for debate in the combat sports community. Experts have long tried to tackle the issue, but the method has somehow been ingrained in the system as standard practice.
Weight cutting is the biggest problem in MMA. We need a solution where we transition towards fighters competing at their actual weight.
Speaking on a past episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the world-renowned podcaster claimed that weighing in significantly heavier has more advantages for a fighter than using PEDs:
"It’s sanctioned cheating and it’s cheating at a much higher scale even than PEDs. That’s a much greater advantage than someone who's doing some sort of testosterone thing or something. They’re compromised but the benefit of being so much larger might outweigh being compromised. If I was running this s**t, I’d fix that first. That would be the first thing I would fix.”
Watch the clip below: