Family of late MMA fighter Rondel Clark starts foundation to raise awareness about extreme weight cutting

Arianne Clark had a layperson’s knowledge of weight cutting early last summer. She knew it was an unhealthy practice, one her sons — both MMA fighters — took part in.

“I knew that it was dangerous to cut weight,” Clark told MMA Fighting. “I think a lot of people know it’s dangerous to cut weight. You’re not supposed to lose so much weight in a short amount of time. I did not know it was deadly, no.”

Rondel Clark, a Sutton, Mass., native, competed in his second amateur MMA fight on Aug. 12, 2017. He cut weight leading into that bout to make weight. Three days after he left the cage, Rondel was dead at the age of 26.

At the time, no one understood why. Rondel took very little damage, even in a losing effort at Cage Titans 35 in Plymouth, Mass. He barely had a scratch on him. Rondel did look exhausted by the third round, though, when he was defeated via TKO by Ryan Dunn.

Later, Arianne found out that Rondel’s kidneys failed due to severe dehydration, leading to his entire system shutting down. Rondel had the sickle cell trait, which Arianne learned accelerated his deterioration. An autopsy concluded that Rondel officially died from extreme rhabdomyolysis, the rapid breaking down of muscle tissue sometimes caused by physical overexertion combined with dehydration.

“It was because of the weight cut before the fight,” Arianne said.

Just about one year after Rondel’s death, Arianne and the Clark family have launched The Rondel Clark Foundation, which seeks to raise awareness and education about extreme weight cutting. The foundation will be officially announced Aug. 25 at Rondel’s MMA gym, Integrated Martial Arts in Westborough, Mass.

“[We want to] raise awareness about weight cutting and educate the MMA community and the boxing community on how dangerous weight cutting is,” Arianne said.

Arianne said she knew before Rondel’s fight that he was cutting weight, but didn’t know how much. She learned later that it was somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds. He was doing it largely on his own, Arianne said, and not necessarily under the supervision of coaches or trainers. To make matters worse, it was Rondel’s second cut to 170 pounds in about six weeks. He fought and won on June 30, 2017 in his amateur debut.

Rondel’s family knew he had the sickle cell trait, an inherited blood disorder that usually comes without symptoms, prior to his death. But Arianne said she wasn’t aware of “the impact it would have with over heating and dehydration.”

Since Rondel’s death, Arianne, who is the treasurer of the foundation, said she has learned a lot about extreme weight cutting and how prevalent it is. Part of the goal of the foundation, she said, is to get regulators to take action on the dangerous practice, beginning with the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission (MSAC). Arianne said that a regulatory body like the MSAC allowing fighters to continue cutting weight for an hour after an initial weight miss is almost like endorsing severe dehydration to drop pounds.

“I found out that it’s more common than I thought,” Arianne said. “It’s like a culture inside the MMA community. This is what they do and I don’t understand why. If they could just make different weight classes, so these fighters don’t feel like they need to cut all of this weight and they can fight in a different class, I think that would be awesome.

“We need to stop weight cutting. It’s deadly. No sport, no profession is worth dying over. It’s not. [Rondel] wasn’t even getting paid for it — not getting paid for it. It was just something he wanted to do.”

There are critics who say that cutting weight is a personal choice and fighters don’t have to do it. Arianne counters that.

“To me, it’s not a personal choice,” she said. “Right now, it’s the culture of the MMA community. Everybody is doing it, so he’s doing it, too. So if no one is speaking about it, no one is telling you this is not healthy, if no one is telling you this is not a good way to go … when mom says it, it’s like, ‘Oh mom, it’s OK.’ Somebody has to speak out and say this is wrong, this is not the way to go. We need to change things.”

The foundation’s website lists other fighters who have died recently due to complications from extreme weight cutting, including Leandro Souza of Brazil and Yang Jian Bing of China. Arianne said it is the hope of the foundation that other jurisdictions pass all or part of the California State Athletic Commission’s (CSAC) 10-point weight-cutting reform plan. She doesn’t want other parents to go through what she has.

“I had a great support system,” Arianne said. “And I thank God that I had a great support system. But some of these families that are affected by the weight cuts, they don’t have the support system. So we want to do something for them, too, hopefully.”

The Plymouth County District Attorney announced last summer that an investigation would be conducted into Rondel’s death. Arianne said she never got a call about it, though Rondel’s death certificate was briefly held up. She believes it’s incumbent on regulatory bodies and legislators to do a better job preventing extreme weight cutting.

“They’re the regulators,” Arianne said. “Regulate. With doping, they have regulations against it. So, make some consequences for the actions that people are taking and let’s try to change it, because it’s senseless. It doesn’t make sense to me.

“They say it’s a personal choice. But people don’t make the best choices. That’s why we have laws and regulations.”