There’s one massive danger that comes with accepting fights, title fights in particular, on short notice.
And that’s the significant and sudden weight cut that must be done to reach the limit acceptable to let the fight go ahead.
The biggest fight of Michael Bisping’s career comes on June 4 as ‘The Count’ has agreed to step in for the injured Chris Weidman to take on Luke Rockhold for his UFC middleweight title.
It is the first championship bout in Bisping’s storied UFC career and the Brit will have to worry just as much about the weight cut as he will about the perfection of a gameplan ahead of UFC 199.
An added issue comes with the fact that the title fight takes place in California, the athletic commission of which has put new emergency weight cutting regulations in place that requires more stringent testing during fight week and, if dehydration is suspected ahead of weigh-ins, then commissioners have the authority to call that fight off.
“If I didn’t lose any weight right now, I would have to do a 24 lbs weight cut, which I’m not going to do, but you’ve heard people do that before,” Bisping told SiriusXM’s The Luke Thomas Show.
“So, if I lose 2 lbs this week or 3 lbs this week, I’ll train all the way up to Saturday. I’ll rest Sunday. If I lose 3 lbs, then I can lose 4 lbs next week. That’s 7 lbs . I’ll be just over the 200 lb limit. It’s doable, but it’s going to be miserable.”
Bisping is currently walking around at about 209 lbs and must weigh in at 185 lbs or less come June 3 or else his long-awaited title shot will be taken away from him and who knows if or when he will be able to claw it back.
But ‘The Count’ is brimming with belief that he can upset the understandably considerate odds to become the first ever British UFC champion.
“Listen, I’ll put it like this,” he said. “If people can walk around – and I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way to religious people – and you believe the son of God came down to Earth 2,000 years ago, and he killed himself for our sins, and he can walk on water, and there’s a God up there looking after ourselves, and if you get on your knees and pray to him that things will change, if you can believe that, then you can believe that I can knock the fuck out of Luke Rockhold two weeks from Saturday.”
