UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner has shared his thoughts on Charles Oliveira failing to make weight at UFC 274.
Marc Ratner says the scale was fine
Last week, former UFC lightweight champion Charles Oliveira was forced to vacate his title after coming in half a pound over the championship limit. Along with Oliveira, there were numerous other athletes who seemed to struggle with making weight. There was a lot of controversy surrounding the calibration of the weighing scale. ‘Do Bronx’ had posted a tweet stating that he made weight that morning only to miss it officially.
Although the difference was only half a pound, it was enough to strip him of his belt. In a recent appearance on MMA on SiriusXM, UFC executive Marc Ratner defended the legitimacy of the events as he argued against the rumors.
"I can say for sure that Friday, there was nothing wrong with the official scale."@MarcRatnerUFC addresses the scale controversy from the #UFC274 weigh-ins.
⬇️ FULL convo w/ @RyanMcKinnell & @AndreasHale out now on the UTC podcast!https://t.co/oiXIxFUXZm pic.twitter.com/qh31ZoMSdH
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) May 10, 2022
“28 of the fighters made weight. So, I am very very sure there’s nothing untoward of that scale. That scale was accurate”
“What people are talking about, the night before, there’s a scale where fighters can come down and check their weight. Some fighters wanted to change the scale from pounds to kilograms which you can do. I think that may have knocked it, I don’t have proof of anything but they may have knocked the scale out of calibration, the practice scale”
“When we found out that there was a problem with the scale early on Friday morning somewhere around 8 or 8:30, we got another scale that was calibrated and put it out there.”
Ratner says Oliveira had the chance to lose weight
When ‘do Bronx‘ stepped over the limit, he still had over an hour to shed off the last half-pound. While his opponent Justin Gaethje had already gained back more than 10 lbs after making weight, Oliveira tried his best to retain his title. Ratner claims that the 32-year-old Brazilian had the opportunity to lose weight but he wasn’t able to.
After the UFC had replaced the unbalanced scale with a properly calibrated one, Ratner stated that athletes could weigh themselves and know whether they needed to lose more weight ahead of time.
“When the fighters first came down on Friday morning, they would go to the scale, and then they would know if they were a little bit over. They had the chance to lose the weight”
“He’s (Oliveira) saying that he checked the weight on Thursday night and he was fine. But I can say for sure on Friday there was nothing wrong with the official scale”
Ratner continued to defend the use of the manual scale amidst talks of replacing it with a digital one. UFC has maintained their stance that nothing was wrong with the official scale. With a win over Gaethje at UFC 274, Oliveira will now fight for the title against another challenger.
