Chris Weidman and Yoel Romero | Brandon Magnus, Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Chris Weidman will never forget how Yoel Romero actually looked when they were inside the octagon.
The topic of Weidman’s UFC 205 showdown with Romero came up during an episode of Deep Waters, where the former middleweight champion and co-hosts Din Thomas, Jorge Masvidal, and Dustin Poirier discussed the ins and outs of weight cutting.
Thomas first argued that extreme weight cuts could actually be to the detriment of the bigger fighter, given how depleted the fighter could end up being on fight night.
“I also think too it has a lot to do with ensuring that you’re fighting in your correct weight class,” Thomas said. “If you’re cutting too much weight before that, no matter what, that’s why I would say, ‘Oh he’s so big, he’s so big,’ but what he’s doing to get down to that has got to have diminishing returns. He’s not the same guy, he’s a completely different guy.
“So if you’re fighting somebody’s who’s cutting this tremendous amount of weight, don’t look at it as ‘He’s going to be so big.’ You’ve got to look at it as like, ‘I’m going to dog him out. I’m going to make him work.’”
Weidman countered by bringing up Romero, owner of one of the most imposing physiques in middleweight history, who went on to knock out Weidman in the third round of their fight.
“But also don’t get too excited when you see him at weigh-ins and you’re like, ‘This dude’s not that big,’” Weidman said. “Because the next day, you’re like, oh man. I knew it early and I also just knew it with myself, I know that this dude’s looking at me like, ‘I’m going to beat this dude’s ass tomorrow,’ and then I’m like, ‘Wait until you see me tomorrow.’ So I knew it with myself but also guys I fought.
“I mean, Yoel Romero, bro, when I saw him in the octagon the next day, this is the first time in my UFC career where I’m looking across my cage—usually when I’m in there, I look at the dude, I’m like there’s no way I’m losing to this dude—when Yoel was in there standing across from me, I’m like, ‘F*ck.’ It was hard to be that confident.”
Poirier shared a similar story. “The Diamond” challenged Islam Makhachev for his lightweight title at UFC 302, putting on a valiant effort before succumbing to a choke in the fifth round. Two years later, Makhachev is the UFC’s reigning and defending welterweight champion, no longer burdened by a difficult cut down to 155 pounds.
When Poirier saw him in the cage, though, it looked like he was already a weight class up.
“Probably Islam,” Poirier said, when asked to name an opponent whose size surprised him after weigh-ins. “Because he was hurting so bad, they were helping him walk and stuff for the weigh-in the day before.
“They got in the cage, the lights were on him, he had veins in his shoulders and stuff, I said, ‘Who the f*ck is this guy? Where’d he come from?’”
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