Weight Cutting + PED's: Going Darkside on MMA

Jordan Parson, the first documented MMA fighter to have suffered with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or trauma-induced chronic brain injury.  He died in a hit and run that he may very well have been able to dodge had his brain not been compromised by this debilitating condition.  Only thanks to his premature death, which allowed an autopsy of his brain, was the first diagnosis of CTE in an MMA fighter able to be made.

All right, let's go dark. If weight cutting is potentially so horrible for the fighters, then whom does it benefit? Why do they keep this shit going? As the Weasle (a well regarded MMA analyst) has observed, main events get cancelled thanks to this shit. Fighters go to the hospital. It looks bad. Fans are disappointed.

 Obviously, it does benefit jacked fighters like Tibau, who can compete against smaller-framed, less muscular ones. Cyborg probably couldn't compete at all without weight cuts; she's too big and no other female is big enough to match her in natural weight. But this is a form of cheating, in my opinion.

Gleison Tibau after re-hydrating

Tibau after weight-cut, before rehydrating

Why would fighting organizations want people to cheat, or to be more physically vulnerable? To go slightly dark, it does give them more flexibility as to who fights whom. They can shuffle a fighter up or down and create the so-called "superfights," at the cost of their fighters' health. Dillashaw goes down to fight Cejudo, Till and Ferguson fight well below their natural weights.

To go darker, though, it makes a knockout more likely--and fans like knockouts. They love them! Fight organizations want their fighters to "finish" other fighters. This is mentioned as a plus for a fighter--"He's FINISHED four out of five of his last fights!".

With the weight cutting, chances are at least one of those fighters is going to be vulnerable to damage and loss of consciousness. Knockout fights are more exciting fights.

The least exciting fights, for the casual fan, are technical ground-game fights that go back and forth between evenly matched grapplers. The casuals like technical striking matches better, but if one fighter gets KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT, then all the bet-t-t-ter, right?

The most exciting fight I've seen this year, the one where everybody at the bar jumped up and howled with excitement, was when Cyborg got KTFO by Nunes--and it was certainly after another one of Cyborg's ridiculous weight cuts (but I wasn't thinking about that at the time).

Chris Cyborg during weight cut

As a side note, the UFC is castrating USADA because, now that the UFC is stable and legit, what the fans will want to see more of is fighters with super-hero bods and a greater ability to finish their opponent. The ability to take a shot does not go up as much as the ability to give one, so knockouts will be more frequent, so will higher profits, so will CTE....The way harm and profits rise together is just fucking beautiful , ain't it?

Superstar Jon Jones' physique became much more muscular after taking PED's.

I think the horrors of brain damage and fight-related injury should be tracked on into the future. How many fighters end up with CTE, addiction, or other debilitating conditions directly related to the damage incurred by fighting while dehydrated against 'roided-up monsters? How does MMA legend Matt Hughes find himself straddling the railroad tracks in his pickup just when the train is barreling through? Was he spaced-out due to brain issues, or drunk as a way of coping with them?  To be absolutely sure, we have to wait until they actually die, as Jordan Parsons did, and donate their brains.  But there are plenty of cognitive tests and brain scans that can be done in the meantime.

The consequences of allowing weight cuts AND having weak PDE-policing? Forget about it. Simply more knockouts, which is most of what the casual fan, with little knowledge of technique beyond the immediately sensational, can appreciate most. So don't look for either to go away anytime soon. Thanks to all that, it's only a matter of time before CTE diagnoses (the first MMA fighter diagnosed with CTE was Jordan Parson in 2016) become commonplace and somebody dies in the octagon, and you are going to see fleets of helicopter moms prohibiting their kids from participating in the sport, or any martial arts from that point on. It'll be basketball all the way.

Scott Wesgarth, a British boxer who died after winning a fight in Feb. 2018

What would happen if all organizations policed PED's well and banned weight cutting by doing weigh-ins that took into account hydration levels? You will see many fewer injuries and cancellations thereof. You would see more evenly matched fighters and fights much more often--and even-steven fights are better, more exciting ones, to me. In my book, nothing is more boring and pathetic than a mismatch. You would see smarter and more technical fights, thanks to fully hydrated brains--also much more worth watching, IMO (as a side benefit, you would see even more detailed breakdown vids by the Weasle). Fights would probably last longer, and there would be more decisions. Fighters would have to work more on their striking accuracy, crafty feints and combinations, correct body positioning, and training to maximize striking power in order to get knockouts, instead of relying on the dehydration of their opponents and sly micro-dosing of steroids.

Frankie Edgar (on right) is a very quick, technical fighter who does not cut weight.  He fights larger fighters who do weight-cut, but usually wins based in his speed and skillfulness and abililty to take a strike without being knocked out.  His record is 23 wins, 6 losses

And with a little education of the public, I'm sure they will learn to appreciate that way of fighting more.

Further reading/watching:

Rolling Stone article on CTE and sports
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/ali-cte-and-parkinsons-confronting-sports-head-injuries-beyond-football-107318/


The Weasle on the dangers of weight cutting (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDfwdX86j8Y

Why Are Vaccine Manufacturers the Only Ones On Earth Who Can't Be Sued?

It's not that Merck, Inc. employees could come and shit in a syringe, and pump it into you, and never be sued. But it's close.

Meet the men who managed to make vaccine manufacturers legally completely free from liability for any harm done by vaccines, ever. Ronaly Reagan in 1986. Evidently Reagan had his reservations, on grounds of resisting the expansion of governmental purview, but Vice president Bush, Commerce Secretary Malcom Baldridge and Dr. Otis R. Bowen, Secretary of Health and Human Services, urged Mr. Reagan to sign it, as did James A. Baker, Secretary of the Treasury.

BTW, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court's ruling that this corporate protectionism was OK. You can assume that corporate-whore crotch scum like Brett Kavanaugh would never dissent against such a monopoly-friendly ruling.

That's right, no matter many harmful ingredients they have included or will include, no matter how they might overload infants and pregnant women and other people susceptible to adverse reactions with immunoreactive agents and toxic heavy metals the effects of which have never been studied long-term, no matter how they might step up the vaccine schedule in order to increase their bloating profits, or use those profits to influence the 'science' of vaccination side effects, no matter how much they ignore the science that does say serious side-effects occur and certain people should be red-flagged as high-risk, no matter how the actual experience of certain people contradicts the CDC's assurances of vaccine safety--you cannot, under any circumstances, sue a vaccine manufacturer. They are simply, legally, never at fault.

Now, you may disagree with me and say that, up 'til now, vaccines have been shown to be perfectly safe for the vast majority. Compelling challenges to this point of view exist, but for the sake of argument, let's agree with that. Nevertheless, no one knows if people will still be safe getting three times as many vaccines as previous generations, because it's simply never been done before. And you sure as hell cannot say that a $24-billion industry isn't ever going to be corrupted by its search for profits into offering, and then covering up, a seriously harmful vaccine schedule. That's a reckless level of naivete.

You know what happens if someone IS injured by a vaccine? There is a governmentally sponsored (and thereby taxpayer-funded) entity that hears cases and makes awards to 1 out of 3 complainants. Vaccine manufacturers themselves never pay a cent, because, in the U.S., that would be legally impossible. We pay for it, not the people who have profited from it.
When this law was drafted, there was very little money to be made in vaccines; the profit margin was horrible. In the 32 years since, they have become a cash cow. I think it's time to dump this law and make them responsible for any actual liability.