On the same day it announced the autopsy report for fighter Yang Jian Bing, Asia's ONE Championship MMA promotion revealed a sweeping new policy designed to curb dangerous practices for making weight.
The promotion released the details Wednesday in a statement on its website. Under the new policy, which ONE touts as the first of its kind in combat sports, fighters will compete at their "walking" weight, effectively banning all dehydration and weight-cutting practices. Multiple weigh-ins and tests—including a weigh-in three hours before a scheduled fight—will determine and monitor fighter compliance.
#BREAKINGNEWS: @ONEFCMMA introduces new Weigh-in Program; BANS weight-cutting by dehydration https://t.co/enilp1Bamr pic.twitter.com/s6wOFgpcEM
— Jason ONE (@jasononefc) December 23, 2015
The program takes effect in January. In the statement, Matt Hume, a UFC veteran fighter and ONE Championship's vice president of operations and competition, said:
After bringing in top medical officials from both the USA and Asia, we believe we have put together the best possible weigh-in program in combat sports. This program will revolutionize the way weigh-ins are conducted around the world and we look forward to the positive outcome it will have on safety standards related to weight-cutting globally.
It will be interesting to see how fighters react to the new policy. Though it is clearly a strong measure designed to deter the kinds of tragedies that befell Bing, there is a longstanding resistance to such blanket policies. Many different methods have been suggested for safer weight-cutting, and the practice has received more attention of late, but nothing has garnered consensus support from athletes, regulators and medical professionals.
Weight-cutting has been used for decades across combat sports as a means of losing weight to reach a given division's weight limit before quickly gaining weight back (usually through rehydration) as a means of gaining a maximum size advantage over one's opponent.
Bing died December 11 because of complications related to his weight cut. The autopsy report released Wednesday indicated the 21-year-old flyweight died of "acute myocardial infarction" (i.e., heart attack).
