Dana White: UFC going back to 4pm weigh-ins – ‘the numbers don’t lie’

Last week, UFC president Dana White announced the company’s plan to end the early morning weigh-ins and move back to its original time at 4pm in the local market where thr event is taking place. It was an announcement that drew mixed reactions from fighters, most of whom areagainst the idea.

During the UFC 225 post-fight press conference, White stated that more fighters actually want the old schedule back, based on some research they have done.

“Believe me, we’ve studied it. The numbers don’t lie,” White said (transcript via MMA Fighting). “We’ve talked to fighters. A ton of fighters want to go back to 4 o’clock. And there’s a lot of fighters that don’t. Eddie Alvarez made a strong case to me about basically people who don’t make weight are never gonna make weight no matter what time you do the weigh-ins and stuff like that. But the numbers don’t lie. The percentages are way off.”

White added that moving the weigh-in time back to 4pm is actually beneficial for fighters who are “not morning people.”

“And I don’t know about you guys, but I know a lot of fighters and most of them are not morning people,” he said. “They sleep all day and are usually up late at night. And this whole morning thing, they gotta cut weight that not. God knows how late they gotta stay up cutting weight and then they gotta go to bed and they can’t sleep much. It just isn’t working.”

“No matter what, there’s no debate about this,” White added. “There’s no debate — we’re going to 4 o’clock.”

The UFC’s early weigh-ins, which take place from 9am to 11am, began in 2016, aiming to give fighters more time to rehydrate and recover after their weight cuts. But according to a report by MMAjunkie, 62 fighters have failed to make weight for their respective fights from June 2016 to May 2018. 15 of those fighters did not end up stepping inside the Octagon, resulting in fight cancellations.

It proved to be a huge jump from when the original weigh-in schedule was being implemented. According to the same report, only 32 fighters missed weight from June 2014 to May 2016, resulting in five fight cancellations.