Are fighters growing, or has cutting weight become just too ridiculous?
One of the toughest aspects of the fight game is the weight cut. Sure, every high school wrestler has his old war stories about everything from extreme sauna time to ingesting laxatives in order to hit weight before a tournament, but being a 16-year-old wrestler is not the same as being a 30-year-old professional fighter.
Young wrestlers have naturally high HGH and testosterone levels. They recover much quicker. They also take zero punches to the head. Combine the opposites of those three conditions, and a person could easily find a recipe for disaster in the fight game. Stamina takes a hit and recovery periods get longer when an older fighter tries the old weight-cutting game. These are major reasons why some guys get involved with performance-enhancing drugs in MMA training, but try to cut back as the fights get closer.