Cat Zingano packed on more weight in the 24 hours after tipping the scales than she cut during fight week for UFC 200.
A pressing issue in the UFC right now is the lack of weight divisions for female fighters. Currently, there are only two weight classes for women in the promotion – 135 lbs and 115 lbs – meaning that if you don’t fall into either of those categories, you’ll either be punching above your weight or face a hell of a cut just to get a fight.
The varying size of the fighters in the women’s bantamweight division in particular, is one of the main arguments for introducing a new women’s flyweight division, which the UFC experimented with in a one-off fight between Joanne Calderwood and Valerie LeTourneau earlier this year.
To put it in very simplistic terms, you tend to get two different types of bantamweights – small ones who don’t cut a lot of weight and would probably be better off at flyweight such as Valentina Shevchenko, and fighters with larger frames who have a significant size advantage come fight night like Shevchenko’s next opponent Holly Holm.
Cat Zingano definitely falls into the latter category.
30lbs down, 10 to go https://t.co/lPTadMxXDT
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) June 30, 2016
Alpha Cat made her return to fighting after nearly a year and a half on the sidelines at the landmark UFC 200 card. A week before the official weigh-ins, Zingano tipped the scales at 145 lbs, 10 lbs shy of the bantamweight limit. She came in on weight at 135.5 lbs at the official weigh-ins the day before fight night.
With the new-look early morning weigh-ins replacing the traditional live weigh-ins we’ve become accustomed to, Zingano had a little more time to recover from the cut before stepping into the Octagon. It seems like she used that to her full advantage as she revealed on Instagram that she was just below the lightweight limit when she took on Julianna Pena the following night.
God help any of the so-called “smaller bantamweights” if they ever get matched against Alpha Cat.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHyGQbHjKU2/
Unfortunately for Zingano, she dropped a unanimous decision to Julianna Pena, with all three judges deeming the Venezuelan Vixen to have taken two of the three rounds.
However, there is no shame in losing to a top prospect like Pena, who may have earned the next title shot with the win, especially considering how long Zingano had been out for before her return.
