LAS VEGAS – UFC executive vice president and chief business officer Hunter Campbell does not often speak at length publicly.
But Aug. 1 at the 2023 ABC Conference at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Campbell was one of the event’s opening speakers as he spoke for approximately 40 minutes during a question-and-answer style presentation in front of regulators from around the globe, as well as a small group of reporters including MMA Junkie’s Brian Garcia and Dan Tom.
Campbell, who said during the presentation he has been with the UFC consistently since 2016 in addition to an internship role a decade prior, alongside Dana White is one of the key figures in the company’s decisions.
While much of the conversation resolved around sanctioning of Power Slap, a slap fighting promotion founded by him, White, Lorenzo Fertitta and others, Campbell also spoke about a variety of MMA-related topics including concussions, CTE, weight cutting, drug testing, and more.
Scroll below to read a full transcript of what Campbell was asked and what his responses were.
Slap fighting origins
QUESTION from ABC president Mike Mazzulli: “How did slap fighting come into existence? Can you explain the process? Because I find it entertaining, but I also find it kind of disturbing, which is why we’re having this conversation.”
ANSWER: “Mike and I spoke about this, and I think that’s a really fair point. I’ll kind of give you a quick overview of that. Every Tuesday, Dana and myself and our two matchmakers, Sean and Mick, we sit in a room. In addition to just sort of laying out the schedule made for fights and doing what we do for 46 UFC events a year and 14 pay-per-views, we were sitting around and this video came up on social media. I looked over, and Dana, he wasn’t paying attention is the short answer. I’m like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ He’s like, ‘You’ve got to see this thing.’ It was a video from Russia of a guy named ‘The Dumpling’ slapping the sh*t out of someone. Literally, I took a look at it and it felt like sort of a novelty to me. But as we got deeper and deeper into it, it had close to 400 million views. That was sort of the beginning of the evolution of it.
“We reached out to the people who were doing it over in Russia and we started to look into it. We found out it was relatively common in Poland and South Africa. This was something that was occurring far more frequently than I think we were led to believe. The first sort of conversation we had was, all things considered, is this something that’s viable? Second, is this something that optically looks worse from a health and safety standpoint than it actually probably is? Unfortunately, there’s no way to know that until you get in and beta test and actually do it with assistance. My first call was actually Andy (Foster). I asked Andy, ‘I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’m thinking about doing this thing. What are your sort of thoughts?’ All of us, we know Andy, and his response to me was, ‘Well, I don’t know, man. That’s some funny stuff.’ I said, ‘Look, I’m going to get with the commission. There’s no way we’re doing this without regulation involved.’
“I reached out to Jeff Mullen and at the time the chair of the athletic commission was a guy name Stephen Cloobeck, and we spent basically three months putting together a protocol system, rules in place, not dissimilar to what we did with the UFC, in terms of fixing some of the fundamental problems that I think cause some serious health and safety concerns. No. 1, I’m not having 60-year-old guys out of a trailer park slapping each other. There’s an age requirement. There’s weight classes now. The stuff that we saw early, was again, the shock value. It was no different than watching a 5’1,” 110-pound guy in the UFC against a sumo wrestler. That’s not what we were here to do. So we created the weight classes. We adopted it. We’ve invested close to $14 million as of today, all of our own money, put into this thing. We’ve had now I think just over 1,400 slaps, not one serious injury, not one problem. The frustration for me publicly with the media has generally been when you talk about slap fighting. Optically, it has shock value to it. I think that’s probably part of the reason as of today we have over three billion social media views on slap alone in less than six months. We have a TV deal that’s going to do real revenue this year. We’ve expanded it. In addition, it’s actually pulled bigger numbers on social than the UFC is globally. So as of right now, we have over 400 million views just in India alone, which is a market we haven’t been able to crack. Again, no serious injuries, no problems, nothing like that. I truly do think this another future of unarmed combat sports.
“I’m happy to talk to anybody if they reach out to me through Marc (Ratner) or the UFC or whoever. I’d love to walk everybody through it. … We’ve been very thoughtful about how we’ve done it. No serious injuries. Unlike boxing and MMA, these guys don’t spar. So when we talk about head injuries, we’ve spent close to $30 million at the (Lou) Ruvo Center at the Cleveland Clinic developing this brain study. What we found was not dissimilar to what you guys have seen. The fights that are really scary are 130-pound boxers who go 12 rounds and take 1,400 shots. You’re talking about three slaps over a four-minute period on a very small portion of your jaw. Anything I can do to get this regulated, I know I’m working with Texas and we’re in the process of doing that in Florida. I think that’s getting done here in the next few weeks. Nevada is obviously done. But I’d love to get it regulated in all 50 states in the next few years.”
Drug testing
QUESTION from CSAC executor director Andy Foster: “You guys have spent a lot of money trying to clean up the drug testing program and it’s worked. It’s worked because you’re seeing less positives among the regional shows that you guys are not a part of because they are trying to get your show. A couple years ago, I think the ABC Medical Committee recommended and this body adopted but some of the states haven’t still gotten to it. Can you speak to the threshold levels because we all use different labs. SMRTL uses a different level of sophistication than a Quest laboratory. If you could speak to the membership, I think that would be helpful.”
ANSWER: “Andy’s been very involved, obviously in the anti-doping, as has Jeff Mullen, Mike, and everybody. Here’s the short version. We spend about $16 million a year on anti-doping. That includes the USADA program, full-time staff, Jeff Novitzky, the global world outreach, education, etc. When I got involved, believe it or not, I started as an intern at the UFC in 2006. I came back when Lorenzo left in 2016 to sort of take over. The short answer is in that time from 2016 to today, we’ve completely revamped the program. … I do believe that it exists in the general public, this sort of notion that when you fail a test, you tested positive for steroids and you cheated. I would tell you that the reality is that if all of the positives, what I’ll call adverse findings, about 80 percent now are not actually athletes who have used anything at all. What’s happened is the technology for drug testing, particularly at the high-end WADA-accredited labs, I think SMRTL is probably the most sophisticated lab in the world, out of Salt Lake. Dan Eichner runs it. If you guys know Dan Eichner, he can give you an education like none other on sort of the fundamental issues with the anti-doping world today.
“That all being said, I think when Andy talks about thresholds, which we’ve tried to push hard, it’s creating limitations that exist so that when an athlete gets an adverse finding or there’s an element of a substance in an athlete’s system, we’re able to determine whether or not the athlete took something intentionally to gain a performance-enhancing advantage. Quite frankly, the supplement industry is the dirtiest industry in the world. Most of the products and chemicals that exist in these substances coming from China and Mexico, these places. They’re manufactured at facilities that manufacture all sorts of terrible things. Overwhelmingly, what we found is when we get into these low picogram levels, for the most part with a lot of these substances, it’s not indicative of intentional use. What it’s indicative of is contamination. You couldn’t believe the rate at which we’ve seen it. I had a fighter named Tom Duquesnoy, out of France. The kid weighed maybe 130 pounds. He was actually taking a women’s multi-vitamin organic from Whole Foods and it tested positive for two SARMS. That’s the level that we’re seeing, is that. That’s not uncommon.
“Nate Diaz, who is a complete lunatic and has driven me crazier than most fighters will ever for the rest of my life, I believe, whatever you want to say about the guy, he is a diehard clean athlete. He started his own supplement company with partners. He ended up testing positive for a SARM from his own supplement company that he created to be vegan and drug-free-sport certified. … So he even when you’re well-intentioned, you’re seeing these levels. That’s why we’ve pushed so hard to get these thresholds. … I am telling you, nobody is more concerned about cleaning up the sport than we are. Obviously, with the economics we push behind it, it supports it. I’m telling you thresholds are absolutely crucial because the technology is so far ahead of the substances that are out there.”
ABC role in slap fighting
QUESTION from Oklahoma State Athletic Commission’s Terry Smith: “Regarding slap fighting, how many states are actually regulating this sport? And is the ABC going to work on adopting rules for this and how can we get more information? I’m sure it’s going to want to come to Oklahoma and we’re going to have to deal with this.”
ANSWER: “Let me say this about slap, too. This is the other thing I started with Jeff Mullen and Andy on very early. I think it’s the role of the ABC not to regulate taste. But I think at it’s fundamental core is to regulate health and safety. Per slap event, we’re spending about $300,000 on medicals, on doing comprehension brain scans, all of the heart testing. Listen, I’m very concerned with like 415-pound guys, that they’re going to take a heart attack. We see this a lot with the brain bleeds and some of the issues these fighters have on the smaller regional shows. Most of the injuries and the issues that occur are from people who frankly a lot of times shouldn’t be fighting anyway. The medicals just aren’t being done to vet out who should and shouldn’t be there. What I love for the ABC to do is comprehensively work through a rule set that we’ve sort of worked on and health and safety standards.
“My nightmare with slap is not dissimilar to what I think the concern was early on with the UFC. I call it the ‘tough man Buffalo Wild Wings death.’ I’m petrified that what’s going to happen is two drunk morons at a Buffalo Wild Wings are going to have some scumbag promoter get up there and two dudes are going to be slapping each other – or worse, they’re going to be two young kids in college at a fraternity party hammered slapping each other. One of these kids is going to die. One of these guys is going to die. Truly, what I would love to see in place for health and safety regulations, for a lack of a better term, will take the people out of this who have no business being involved. If you want to do it, you want to do it genuinely, spend the money, invest, and protect the people who are participating in a ruleset that makes sense. Don’t just take two dudes off the street and let them slap each other and think it’s OK. To answer your question, again, I’m running toward regulation. It’s my dream that 50 states adopt this thing with the medical standards in place and we have a framework so that this thing can grow in a correct way.”
Slap fighting licensing
QUESTION (attendee did not identify self): “Have you guys talked about which database you’re going to put it in for medical suspensions? I haven’t seen that stuff yet.”
ANSWER: “It’s so funny you ask. Jeff Mullen and I just were actually talking about that a few weeks ago. In the theory, again, this was the other reason why I think Mike and I… Mike has been a huge friend of us and supporter and I’ve always relied on Mike and Jeff and Andy and Kim (Sumter), to bounce ideas off of. I would love it to be in the ABC database because the other thing I’m starting to see, which initially I didn’t, is a lot of regional MMA fighters, a lot of guys who are regional boxers, are looking at this. They’re seeing the amount of news we’re getting. I mean, frankly, I can tell you right now, I have a guy who fights for me who goes by the name of ‘Wolverine.’ Essentially, he lives in the Ozark’s. In four Slap events, he’s made more money than he has made his entire life, in the last six months.
“What’s happening already is now starting to get all these regional boxers who are sitting around saying, ‘Why in the hell am I fighting for $200 when I can come do this? I actually know how to take a shot. I know how to slap. I don’t have to spar. I don’t have to do anything.’ … What my concern is, is I don’t want to see a guy get slapped on a Friday, turn around on a Wednesday and show up at a regional show in Sacramento and he’s boxing. If we’re going to do this the right way, the suspensions should carry forward through every jurisdiction for every combat sport. I can’t do that without a database. I’m with you 100 percent.”
Concussions
QUESTION from unidentified questioner: “You recently got a letter of concern … from a subcommittee of the House of Representatives on concussions. Have you responded to that letter and if so can you share that?”
ANSWER: “To be honest with you, I don’t know where that stands. One of the lawyers who works for me, who we made the CEO of Slap, I think he’s been working on some version of it. But here’s what I can also tell you. Until we ran events and worked through this, it was difficult to sort of make any statements as the concern is the concussion component. Now that we have, here’s what I can tell you, again, as someone who… I’ve been to every UFC show this year. I’ve probably been to a thousand since 2006. The injuries in Slap are not any more significant or severe than what you see in the UFC. In fact, they’re far less. Now, do guys take concussions? Absolutely. But it’s happening at a much lower rate than I think the narrative is suggesting. Again, I can also speak to the fact we’ve funded the brain study at the Cleveland Clinic. Universally, what’s going down is the big concussive shot, particularly over a two-slap or three-slap event is not leading to, for lack of a better term, brain bleed, swelling, and death. It’s instantaneous. It’s over. The commissions have done a great job.
“I’ll tell you actually who’s done an incredible job is the referees that we’ve brought in. We reached out to basically all of the MMA referees that we respected all across the country. Initially, my whole idea was, instead of starting from scratch, and to speak to your point of the concussion issue, what I wanted was I wanted referees who have experience, who immediately can recognize when somebody was and was not fit and able to continue, to prevent exactly that. Again, the long-winded answer is I don’t know where that letter stands. From my understanding and what I was told is it’s not really going anywhere.:
QUESTIONER: “… I’m sorry. I was not asking what congress would do about it. I was asking about what your response was. When you’re saying it’s not going anywhere, you lost me.”
CAMPBELL: “I’m not sure if you’re asking if I’ve responded formally to a letter or you’re asking what my response is to a concussion issue in slap. I don’t understand the question.”
QUESTIONER: “I assume that you’re going to be in a position in the response, and maybe my assumption is wrong, to the subcommittee on concussions…”
CAMPBELL: “I don’t think we’re doing that and if we are, I don’t know about it. My response to you is what I’m telling you right here. You have a group of people. Listen, I don’t mean to, for a lack of a better term, sh*t on anybody, because I understand what the concern is. But there are a group of people that don’t want any combat sports to exist. There are a group of people who think boxing is completely barbaric and should be banned. We’ve been with the UFC since 2001 and we don’t have one serious catastrophic head injury in the history of our sport since we’ve had this ownership group. Boxing cannot say the same. I was talking to a commissioner the other day with a kid in the hospital who was basically brain-dead in the ambulance and now they have him in a coma. I don’t have those issues. Frankly, as of right now, from what I’m seeing, I don’t see Slap, based on the limit amount of shots taken, have those issues. Yeah, does getting hit in the head lead to bad things? Of course it does. If you don’t want to take the risk, you shouldn’t participate in any unarmed combat sport and get hit in the head. The question isn’t whether or not it’s a good idea to get hit in the head. I think everyone agrees it’s probably not the best idea. But these are adults who are making informed decisions. It’s our obligation if we’re going to be involved in this is to do it the safest way possible.”
Brain studies/smart mouth guards
QUESTION from unidentified questioner: “What studies have you done about the force of the hits in slap fighting?”
ANSWER: “I’ll tell you exactly. That’s a great question. One of the things we spent time developing over the last three or four years is we’ve actually been working on a what’s called a ‘smart mouth guard’ that’s not dissimilar to what you’re starting to see in the NFL. We’re starting to be able to read whether or not the force is, for lack of a better term, where it stacks up. What I can tell you, and again it’s anecdotal … from some of the actual people who have participated in it, particularly with fighters in other sports, what they will tell you is, the fighters that come from MMA and particularly boxing, they’ll say the shots they’re taking are not comparable to the shots you take from a legitimate, high-level guy. It’s a different mechanism that you feel when you get hit. That’s at least anecdotal from what we’re being told. I hope to actually have data on it and that’s what we’re trying to work toward. In a perfect world, what I’d love is a mouth guard that can actually tell us when somebody was or was not concussed. I’m spending money to work toward it and I think that’ll work all across combat sports, not just Slap.”
Knockout rates: Slap vs. boxing
QUESTION from Magraken: “What are the knockout rates so far on Slap events compared to boxing. Just watching a few, it looked like the KO rate is higher. I think we can all agree a KO from a head shot is a traumatic brain injury. So you’ve got people that are defenseless, because the rules tell them to be defenseless, taking intentional brain injury.”
ANSWER: “I think, again, optics and reality are not the same thing. What we see on social or with clips that are more shocking for a reason that they just get more views. But what we’re starting to see is two-fold. The guys that are lasting in this a little bit longer are frankly, and you’ve all seen this in every other combat sport, some people have a chin and some people don’t. That’s just the reality. I think we’re just under 40 percent or 38 percent in terms of actual knockouts occurring. It’s a higher rate of people who are first-time participants in the sport. A lot of those people come to it once because frankly they have no combat sports experience. … It’s not as high as you’d think the optics would make you believe.”
CTE/Promoting older fighters
QUESTION from Magraken: “I just want to make a comment on health and safety in general whether it’s slap or MMA, and I applaud you for the amount of deaths in the UFC in 30 years, but you do have fighters with suspected CTE. … It’s a real concern, anybody taking repeated head injury. We need to be honest about the fact CTE is part of what these guys are signing up for.”
ANSWER: “No question. No question. And I say this all the time. When you think about, and I hope all of us sort of have the same opinion on this, unlike I think with what you saw with the NFL – and again, I’m not sh*tting on the NFL and I don’t know the ins and outs of those issues – but like most things in life, the optics on the surface are distinct from the reality behind the scenes. It’s always more complicated than it seems. But the assumption of risk issue in our sport is very apparent. You’re going to have a hard time convincing me anybody at this stage who gets involved in MMA, boxing, Slap, muay Thai, kickboxing – I don’t believe anybody believes that there is zero risk in terms of taking brain injury. Again, the gentleman’s question earlier, which is why I think the ABC getting ahead of this is so fundamentally important and why I’m here frankly in front of you, is it’s your job as regulators to make sure that we create an environment for people who participate that’s as healthy and safe as possible: getting these people in a database, making sure that people who are putting on shows irrespective of whether it’s boxing, UFC, slap fighting, are having health and safety protocols and testing that are necessary to prevent real injury.
“Listen, I told Andy at dinner last night. I have a fighter who I love. I truly love this person. He and I have a great relationship. I love his family. I had to have a talk with him yesterday and basically I said, ‘Look, I have a feeling you’re a guy who is going to try to fight until your 55. You’re a very popular fighter. It makes all the sense in the world from a monetary perspective to have you continue.’ But I remember years ago watching a documentary on when Muhammad Ali fought Larry Holmes. Everybody was aware that Muhammad Ali had some serious degenerative mental issues at that time. There were promoters that put on those fights and profiting off of it. I will never be a part of it. Dana and I will never be a part of something like that.
“The reality is, I hope as these commissions and this sport grows, one of my biggest concerns and one of the things I focus on frankly, is the age of these athletes. At a certain point in time, you have to make the decision to say, ‘I can’t stop you from doing what you’re going to do as an adult. If people are going to let you do it, that’s great. But I think we all know and we’ve all seen there are people who are participating in combat sports that have absolutely no business doing it. Whether you’re a commission or a promoter and you’re profiting off of a 52-year-old fighter who we all know can barely string a sentence together, that to me is immoral. Again, that’s why I think to Mike’s point earlier, getting united, making sure that all of you in this room are on the same page. At the end of the day, the most important aspect is protecting the health and safety of everybody who participates in the sports we love. That’s it.”
Power Slap 'copycats'
QUESTION from Massachusetts State Athletic Commission chair Bryan Lambert: “Are you seeing a lot of Power Slap competitors or local regional things pop up? Everything you’re talking about, database, getting a rule set, if we’re seeing more regional action that isn’t supported by the financials of the UFC and all you can bring to the table, to me, that speaks even more to the need to get unified on stuff.”
ANSWER: “Yes. Back to my biggest concern earlier. It’s absolutely happening. The reason why is that the barrier to entry is so low. It’s not hard to convince people that if you’re going to pay me to get slapped once or twice that you can throw this together. We are seeing already a lot of this goofy, copycat-type stuff happening on the smallest level. Again, Andy can confirm this. Before we put on the first event, I went to Jeff in Nevada. … This was my single biggest concern because I knew that as we were putting it together, I was seeing the applicants we were getting for people to participate on the first show. I would say 90 percent of them were people where I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. You think I’ll put this guy anywhere near this, you’re out of your mind.’
“But these smaller copycats are doing that and we’re seeing it. … There’s no testing and it’s happening quicker and quicker and quicker. Frankly, it’s the result of the social media culture. You can throw up one of these things at most venues and it will pull real views. There are people who are monetizing these things on YouTube and TikTok and all of this stuff. It’s starting to pick up quickly when they’re starting to see the views and the amount of traction it’s getting.
“The other reality is what I’m talking about with the AI stuff and the algorithms. Because the slap content is pulling so many numbers on such a massive scale, we are seeing copycats as well because they’re sort of feeding off the visual algorithms that are functioning through the social media systems. So it’s getting quicker and quicker. ‘Big Nog’ (Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira) was down here for International Fight Week. He already told me there’s four promotions in Brazil that have started in the last month. Again, I sort of didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it has, but it is. If there isn’t regulation in place, somebody is going to get hurt because participants who have no business doing this are going to start doing this.”
Training for slap fighting
QUESTION from unidentified questioner: “We’re in the business of regulating combat sports. Where is the athletic ability here? Where does somebody train for it? You mentioned earlier there is no sparring. How does somebody prepare? What’s the athletic competition? Where is the athletic ability that’s involved in competing in this activity?”
ANSWER: “One of the the things that’s sort of interesting is… two kind of components. Because of the way the ruleset is structured, Andy had this question for me last night. Trust me – I understand when you’re going through this, a lot of it seems sort of silly. But the way that the fouls were created, we spent a lot of time working with Jeff Mullen, and obviously you guys all know Jeff and how respected he is and how long he’s been in the sport, and again consulting with Andy, one of the things we really worked on was the way that you slap. So, you can’t club. If you lead at all with the palm of your hand, it’s a foul. You can’t lift your legs up, so you can’t create this massive amount of torque or think of like a golf swing or a baseball swing where you’re really throwing into it. It’s a really limited motion. What we sort of started to see is we built a portion of our Apex out to sort of help guys train – I know it sounds funny, but it’s true – the accuracy of the slap, keeping the feet planted, doing it the correct way.
“Again, the other thing we’re starting to see a lot of is with these guys who are these guys who are taking it seriously. They’re doing a ton of jaw work, neck work, four-way neck machines, strengthening out the trap muscles to keep their head from sort of snapping and stuff like that. The other thing that’s incredible is some of these guys who are doing this very early on. I’ll give you another example. We’ll get back to this guy ‘Wolverine’ and the other guy we had compete on our show. He’s named Darius. When they were competing in Missouri, I think they went 40 rounds. So at a high, high level, one of the other things that happens is these guys are actually getting sort of good at a certain point. When I saw 40 rounds, I said, ‘That’s guaranteed to kill somebody.’ If you get slapped 40 times and basically you slap until someone quits, somebody is going to die. That’s why we immediately took it down to three and five. Again, one in Poland, I think was 74 rounds.
“The reality is that these guys who getting good are also roll with the momentum of it, too. When they feel the hand hitting – and you can’t flinch early – they feel sort of… and again, they’re telling me… I haven’t been slapped… when they feel the fingertips hit the face, they are sort of rolling with the momentum. They time it. There’s a timing component to it, too. Again, I’m not trying to advocate or argue that it has the same skill set level as a high-level boxer or high-level MMA fighter. It doesn’t. But I do think there are ways you can get better at it to protect yourself in whatever fashion it sort of lends itself to.”
How close to final product of slap fighting
QUESTION from Brian Garcia, of MMA Junkie Radio: “From Day 1 to the UFC and where’s it at today, it’s completely different, right? Rules, regulations, all that. Where you’re at with slap fighting right now? What percentage would you say you’re at where you’re comfortable with the rules, the fouls, some of the things that happens in that regards, as far as fighters advancing off a foul? What percentage would you say you’re comfortable saying this is close to the final product you want it to be?”
ANSWER: “Maybe 90. I’ll give you a perfect example. I think for our last Slap event, or right before it, one of the last things we had was a timing issue. When the slap fighter was coming after a slap time, time to recover, getting back in the box, etc., we had this time limit. One of the things I recognized after three shows is when these guys who were taking too much time and they felt rushed is when you saw a lot of fouls occur. The first few events what we had is you had to get in the box and you had to actually deliver the slap within a certain, allocated amount of time. When guys were short, you saw a ton of clubbing. You saw guys lifting because they were hurt. They didn’t have time to set and have the technique and do it the correct way. I know our man back there who you can speak to later, he and I worked together and basically what we said is, once you’re in the box, the time stops. As long as you’re in the box and ready to go and you’ve calmed yourself, you can set, you can deliver it. We immediately saw it. Immediately we saw the rate of fouls go down 400 percent. I mean, it was a number that was crazy.
“It’s things like that where you’re going to find the evolution over time. We’re going to keep adjusting and changing. Obviously, it’s just like MMA, man. You have to be responsive to what you see. I haven’t seen enough yet to tell you I think we’re 100 percent there because we still make changes. Again, I think there was some thought initially early on with some of the other promotions in Poland, where they allow the heel to rotate up and they allow certain things. We had beta tested it. I didn’t like the outcome. I saw where that was headed. Again, we really created massive limitations for where this thing started. I’m sure there’s still plenty to go in terms of fixing this and making this the best product we can make it and the safest product we can make it.”
Weight cutting
QUESTION from CSAC executive director Foster: “Weight cutting is one of the biggest problems in mixed martial arts. I’ve been dealing with it for a long time. But what we’ve noticed, what I’ve noticed and the staff when we work with you guys, is the people who attend your Performance Institute, those folks you’re giving meals (to), those people are having a lot easier cuts than our historical data has shown. They’re getting closer. Because everybody in here will have UFCs from time to time, those people who have that are having a lot easier time. I think that’s worth talking about.”
ANSWER: “Education. That’s really what that comes down to. I know all of you have seen this. You’re at a weigh-in. You see some dude that looks like he is, I call them the ‘bro trainers,’ out of Gold’s Gym, juiced to the gills and this guy is giving health and safety weight cutting advice. We had so much of this for so long. Andy and I could talk about this endlessly, I hate weight cutting – absolutely hate it. I wish there was a world which existed where weight cutting wasn’t part of the sport, but you’re never going to do it. It’s until some level of technology, I think, advances where you can really fix it in a way that makes sense. Everybody is always going to look some advantage. Now, one of the things we’ve done, to Andy’s point, is we spent a ton of money getting back to the education component. These are independent contractors. I can’t tell you what to do or what not to do. I can tell you what I know and I can tell you what the science suggests, now that we’ve spent, again.
“We opened the PI in mid-17, and back to the health and safety issue and why the weight cutting component kind of comes full circle, we’ve explained to these guys that actually, fundamentally the advantage you believe you get from having these extraordinarily massive weight cuts is completely, generally offset by the fact the more weight you lose, the less fluid you have surrounding your brain, which also makes you far more likely to get knocked out. If what your ultimate objective is is to not get knocked out, or to have a better chin, have fluid around your brain. It’s another thing, again, you talk about the early weigh-ins, there was massive resistance early, tons of problems early. But now, you see this sport being safer. The knockout rate has actually fallen close to 10 percent, I think.
“So again, it’s an educational issue. I was explaining to these guys, too – and I know you guys know how adamant Andy is with the weight cutting stuff – the reality is, too, it’s also the education with these guys, also saying I can now show you data of fighters who have changed weight classes, moved up, and done it constructively. And they’ve had a higher rate of success. What these guys need, it’s not even so much the nutrition element. It’s the education component. It’s explaining and showing them and having them talk to fighters who they respect. Anthony Smith is a guy who fights for us who is a great example. Anthony Smith was a very good middleweight – very good. But he was getting knocked out. He was having short, incredibly violent fights and his chin wasn’t there. He goes to light heavyweight and all of a sudden, in three fights, he’s fighting Jon Jones for a world title. So we have the science… And I know not everybody has access to the Performance Institute. It’s very expensive and it’s a limited group that can access it. But what you can do is show these guys with body scans, ‘This is where you’re at. This where your power translates to the division above you. This is actually how you will feel when you’re at this weight.’ This is the rebound.
“I know you have all seen these kids. They’ll come in and strip themselves down to 130 pounds and within three weeks, they’re 170. Do you know what that’s doing to your organs? Do you know what that’s doing to your health? Do you think you’re going to have any sustainable ability in this sport doing that to your body? Good luck. It’s all education-based. Again, we have tons of research and science on it. We’re happy to share it with all of the regulatory bodies. We have experts in all this stuff. We literally have three guys who do nothing but focus with athletes on weight cutting. That’s all they do. The science is now available. Again, being much more thoughtful about it and cutting down extreme weight cuts has proven to be highly beneficial to high-level athletes – very beneficial.”
