The UFC announced that they will be starting a new women’s weight class at 145 pounds and will crown a new champion at UFC 208. The inaugural 145-pound belt will either go to former Welterweight champion Holly Holm or Germanie de Randamie.
Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino is the only reason why Dana White even thought of making a 145-pound class, but she is not in this match. Hell, she may not ever fight at 145 pounds again. In her two fights at 140 pounds in the UFC, she had to cut a ton of weight and her body nearly shutdown both times. In my opinion, she has too much muscle mass to fight at anything below 155 pounds on a semi-regular basis.
If you’re confused by that title match pairing since there is a glaring omission. This is one of the reasons why the 145-pound Featherweight weight class will be a huge failure.
White sees Cyborg as a potential star, but she’s already 31 years old and has been popped for steroid use in the past. They could get a handful of fights out of her, but she will have to lose a lot of muscle mass, which she apparently isn’t too keen on since she keeps training with heavy weights. A fantasy match-up between Ronda Rousey and Cyborg could still happen at a catchweight, but Cyborg will have a huge advantage if the fight happens at anything higher than 145 pounds.
If the UFC needed to make another weight class, they should have started a new 125-pound weight class that would fit nicely in-between their 115-pound Strawweight and 135-pound Bantamweight classes.
A 125-pound weight class would be more kind to UFC’s women fighters. Cutting weight is harder for women to do since they retain more water. They should at least be given the option of an easier weight cut. There are a few Strawweight fighters that could move up and avoid a large weight cut. Also, some smaller Bantamweight fighters could drop down and be more competitive.
The UFC likes to promote their female fighters as sex symbols. They would have an easier time doing so with a new smaller weight class than a larger one at 145 pounds. This is evident in UFC’s female promotion machine of the upcoming headlining Paige VanZant vs. Michelle Waterson fight this weekend. Neither fighter is a strong title contender, but both are gorgeous. VanZant was even a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars”.
The fight to crown an inaugural 145-pound Featherweight champion is also a joke. Holly Holm has lost her last two fights and Germanie de Randamie isn’t considered as a strong title contender either. This is a garbage weight class and the winner will be a paper champion, at best.
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About the Author…
Bobby Roberts (otherwise known as Sweetbob) is the creator of ‘America’s White Boy’ and contributor at Project Shanks. His writing has been featured on ESPN’s ‘SportsNation’, Sports Illustrated’s Hot Clicks, Guyspeed, and various other sites. You can follow him on Twitter at @Sweetbob.