Due to a weight cutting death, One Championship rolled out changes to their weigh-ins and divisional ranges at the start of 2016.
Although online literature suggests they still do weigh-ins, I can’t find any legitimate pre-event weigh-in results since they rolled out this new program. As far as I can tell, they come up with a fight-ready, perhaps slightly dehydrated weight for each fighter and put them in whatever division they fit.
What makes it more confusing is how they structure their ranges:
| Division | OneFC Limit | Standard Limit |
| Heavyweight | 265 | 265 |
| Light Heavyweight | 225 | 205 |
| Middleweight | 205 | 185 |
| Welterweight | 185 | 170 |
| Lightweight | 170 | 155 |
| Featherweight | 155 | 145 |
| Bantamweight | 145 | 135 |
| Flyweight | 135 | 125 |
| Strawweight | 125 | 115 |
| Atomweight | 115 | 105 |
The upper-limit of Heavyweight remains unchanged, while all of the other divisions are staggered by one, with the exception of Light Heavyweight, which basically equates to a “Light” Heavyweight. So, they tried to make the common naming convention “work” with their altered methods.
To incorporate a real-world example, Bibiano Fernandes is the promotion’s 145-pound champion. In a fight-ready, perhaps slightly dehydrated state, he probably is about 145 pounds and as far as I can tell, this is where he is expected to weigh under their strange conditions — so this is pretty clear so far.
To OneFC, he is a “Bantamweight”, but at where he’s expected to weigh, he’d be considered a “Featherweight” to the rest of the MMA world, sans-Shooto, whose division ranges are staggered as well, but in the opposite direction. However, in the rest of MMA, he would not be exempt from cutting an additional 10 or so pounds of water weight, so in all likelihood, he’d weigh-in at 135 prior to the event — a “true” Bantamweight.
As you may have noticed, our divisional limits are slightly higher than the standard limits, to accommodate for slight variances historically in organizations shifting things a bit, deciding to use the metric system and with another pound or two on top of that to allow for small weigh-in misses. However, they aren’t so much higher to allow for OneFC fighters to be slotted in their “true” MMA divisions without breaking our own rules and ignoring actual weigh-in results.
Hopefully this clears things up.
7 Comments
According to their website they check fighter weights every day during fight week including 3 hours before the event. They don’t seem to have a weigh-in event like other organisations.
I’m not even sure there are actual weigh-ins… maybe ceremonial ones for pictures, but this would fog up the picture even more.
Actually, they don’t show fighter weights in the “tale of the tape” any more (they did at first).
You wouldn’t have to break your own rules; they’re your rules, you can change them. If you accept that OneFC “Bantamweights” would be classified as Bantamweight if fighting for any other organisation, you could change the rule to be, for example, “Bantamweight is 138lbs, or any fight classified as Bantamweight by a recognised organisation that doesn’t allow weight cutting. The following organisations are currently recognised: OneFC”
Fighter weights are shown in the “tale of the tape” on their shows, so they’re not exactly secret. Maybe they just don’t put them online.
The problem is that nobody knows what exactly they’re doing… Your guess is as good as mine since the official weight-in data is not publicized.
My guess is that 145 was the fit for Nguyen, but they allowed him to go higher than that.. but not lower? No idea.
That’s very strange. if they “come up with a fight-ready, perhaps slightly dehydrated weight for each fighter and put them in whatever division they fit” it means that each fighter has only one division that’s right for him which the One management decide on. so how was Martin Nguyen able to be a two division champion and fight in a third?