When it comes to UFC events, anything can and often does happen. Fighters get injured last-minute, fighters get sick last-second, and at UFC 274 champion Charles Oliveira stepped on the scale a half pound heavy and was stripped of his lightweight title in response.
To make things even messier, multiple fighters came out and claimed the commission scale was heavy, meaning Oliveira wasn’t really overweight. Just another day in the wild world of mixed martial arts.
So what really happened? According to former Nevada commission head turned UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner, there was no way the official weigh-in scale was calibrated heavy.
“Well, first of all, let me say that the official scale, which is the one they weighed in on Friday with the athletic commission … 28 of the fighters made weight,” Ratner said in an interview on Sirius XM (via MMA Junkie). “So I’m very, very sure that there was nothing untoward on that scale. That scale was accurate.”
“What people are talking about, the night before, there’s a scale where the fighters can come down and check their weight. Some fighters wanted to change the scale from pounds to kilograms, which you can do, and I think that may have knocked it – we don’t have any proof of anything — but it may have knocked the scale out of calibration. When we found out that there was a problem with the scale early on Friday morning somewhere around 8 or 8:30, we got another scale that was calibrated and put it out there.”
“I am not sure what time that Charles or his camp came down on Friday,” Ratner added. “But he’s saying that he checked the weight on Thursday night, and he was fine. But I can say for sure that Friday there was nothing wrong with the official scale.”
Charles Oliveira and his team made the unfortunate decision to show up for the weigh-ins just five minutes before the scales were set to close. Had they come for the start and stepped on the UFC’s scales at the hotel or backstage at the weigh-ins, they would have seen the half pound discrepancy and had much more time to solve the issue: two hours before having to step on the scale and then the extra hour for a second attempt.
Instead they only had the extra hour, and Oliveira couldn’t lose the half pound in that time. It’s a mistake that is possibly going to cost “Do Bronx” over a million dollars. While the UFC still gave him PPV points as if he was the champ for UFC 274, there’s a good chance he won’t get them when he fights for the vacant lightweight title later in 2022.
