Let’s get straight to the point. Padding records is not an MMA phenomenon (it’s exponentially worse in boxing), nor is it a UK phenomenon, but it is an issue that has been raising its head, even moreso over the past couple of years.

This food for thought for this blog was actually a tweet by Cage Warriors matchmaker Ian Dean, who said:

“Gonzaga defeats the 13-0-1 Edinaldo Oliveira. UK fighters take note, protected records don’t help you in the big show.”
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This time yesterday I was sat at my desk, mentally gearing up to shift the last few of pounds to get down to weight. Surprisingly, I was feeling quite energetic (it’s all relative of course) and looking forward to just getting it shifted in order to commence the fun part of this whole ordeal; rehydrating, replenishing, and then having a tear up with some spritely young fellow in the cage.

It’s hard to describe the mindset you have when you’re in a dehydrated and depeleted state and you just want it to end, but at that point I guess the motivation is that relief is only a couple of hours (and pounds) away. I donned the sweatsuit once again, layered up and jacked up the volume on the I-Pod; with a selection of tunes from Slick Rick all the way through to No Warning keeping me pounding the treadmill. Again, I got a sweat on with a light jog and then maintained it with some lower intensity stuff to keep it going. My thought process is that I don’t want to be taxing my body any more than I need to, so it was a case of slowly, slowly catchy monkey. And I could catch a monkey. I did about 35 minutes on the treadmill, bike and skipping combined, and I got that sloshing feeling in my sweatsuit somewhere around my elbows that lets me know I’ve expired a decent amount of liquid from my body.

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We’re edging ever closer to the pay off and, whilst my body and mind feels more depleted as the hours pass, it also takes us closer to the goal; being a skinny runt for about five minutes to step on the scales, only to put most of the weight back on again. That sounds pretty backwards to me right now, and whilst I was boiling myself in a hot bath last night, nothing could have seemed more trivial than my current pursuit. However, it’s got to be done no matter how stupid I think it is. Again, I’m not going to bang on about the ethics and morality behind weight cutting, just reporting the facts on how I do it.

(A selection of cutting utensils)

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I left you following a scintillating egg white and black coffee breakfast yesterday morning and, I’ll be honest, things haven’t exactly got much cheerier around these parts.

The saving grace amongst toiling through the slow hours is that for every moment that goes by, you’re a moment closer to weigh-in time. Clock watching never helps though, like you want it to feel like any more of a drag.

There isn’t a great deal of note to say about the day time whilst I was in the office. Stuff got written, stuff got sorted, people unwittingly came dangerously close to getting their eyes gouged out and I went about my merry weight cutting ways. I was on a reduced water intake of around 5 litres of the low sodium stuff, and I ate meagre amounts to keep me going whilst looking forward to not a lot.

As you can tell, enthusiasm isn’t at an all time high at this point. Oddly, the day before the weigh-ins when I start the 24-hour fast, I actually feel better knowing it’s slightly more imminent. Two days before kinda sucks though, because there’s no real sense of achievement in there.

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We finished off yesterday after taking a look at a little bit of background information and how I’d go my weight to where it is now. Sullenly I admitted to waking up at 72.0kg on Monday morning, but that looks a little brighter today as I was down at 70.4kg after a monumental urine deposit upon waking akin to some sort of African waterfall. In a couple of days time I’ll be happy with a mere trickle of the stuff, but for now there’s just no stopping the flow. I’d apologise for going into the gritty intricacies of my toilet practices this early on, but this is the real life of cutting weight and you’ll be paying a lot of attention to it if you do it yourself.

(A typical weight cut shop)

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People are often astounded when I tell them how much it’s possible to lose in a relatively short period of time to make weight for a fight. “How can I do that?” they ask. By sweating your balls off, eating the blandest, most unfulfilling diet, hitting the cardio like a mad man and an array of other torturous endeavours, that’s how. But I don’t tell them that. Normally I’ll just say, “Ahh it’s not easy but it’s do-able,” or something similarly inane. I don’t even really bother going into why it won’t work for them because the bulk of it is water and glycogen depletion – all of which comes back on after I’ve stepped on the scales (not like magic, but by a proper rehydration and replenishment strategy). However, for you guys — no doubt an informed and intelligent bunch — I’m going to go into it.

(Eric ‘Red’ Schafer looking happy in the sauna – an experience most fighters will go through at some point)
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After an extended hiatus “Haters Corner” is back and will be more regular now. Due to a hectic move into my flat and a fight camp that was in full swing until I in truly amazing yet tragic fashion injured myself on which I shall elaborate more towards the end of the blog. Tangential rantings here we come.

Although some names and promotions will be name dropped in the upcoming dialogue, it is in no way a specific dig at anyone it’s merely an indictment of the system as a whole, I.E a lack of commission or governing body. Some matchmaking of promoter leaves allot to be desired for example at the weekend Arunas Kilmavicius of……………….yes you guessed it Antonio’s gym fought 2 days in a row against actually very quality opposition in the form of Aaron Wilkinson And Craig Turner, losing both times just like he did the week previous where he lost to again another pretty good opponent in Ali Arish. So 3 fights in 1 week, is this really what we want going on in the MMA community, I think not. This is not the only similar example to this, I know for a fact it is rife.

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After much procrastination I am finally breaking my proverbial YourMMA blogging cherry. For those of you who don’t know me my name is Kieran Malone and I am a 19 year old professional fighter, fighting out of the Dinky Ninja Fight Team in Scotland. For those of you who know me you may know me as ”Hater” or even “ wee dick”. It didn’t take long for me to think of the topic and direction I would take in my initial blog, which will be the first of many. The topic derives directly from how the year 2010 went for me and could also help young fighters like myself.

Before I get into the meat of what this blog is about I will give a prelude spiel about myself to let the e-world learn more about moi. Before I started out training and fighting MMA I had an unusual background for a British MMA fighter in the fact that I have a bit of a background in the sport of wrestling which I happened to be not bad at, pretty successful in fact. As I write this I will have been training “cage fighting “ for just over a year in the process I had a whirlwind semi-pro tenure going undefeated in 5 fights before going pro and amassing a quite shite ( there is no other word for it ) 1-2 record. This provides a perfect segway into my topic.

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(Gary Cross of G4 MMA Fighters with notorious weight cutter Anthony Johnson of the UFC)

Weight cutting is now a major science where fighters can drop 9kgs in the final days before their weigh in, so why not use the same concept for an MMA manager?

London (G4MMA) 10 August 2010 – UK based founder of G4 MMA Fighters Gary Cross has decided to lose 60lbs in weight. The first stop for advice and products was G4 MMA’s new sponsor Pro Athlete Supplementation (PAS) backed by British Olympic Gold Medallist Darren Campbell MBE and Senior Nutritionist Jon Williams. The aim is to drop from 284lbs to 224lbs using PAS products with their nutrition plans, combined with a rigorous training schedule comprising kettle bells and circuit training put together by top G4 MMA Fighter and Personal trainer Tim Newman.

You can follow Gary’s quest as he sheds the pounds and increases fitness on a weekly basis, and transforms his bulky businessman frame into a well honed MMA fighting machine. Follow the progress as Gary works towards his goal each week.

The campaign starts today with a high protein diet for the week combined with PAS Phase 3 protein and CLA tablets. Just quote the promo code G4MMA when purchasing products on the PAS website for a discount.

 Details of the workout sessions will be published each week along with weight loss results and the diet can be obtained from gary@g4mmafighters.com.