The recent adoption of early weigh-ins has been a welcome change among MMA fighters and industry professionals.

But, as happy as he is with fighters now having additional time to rehydrate, veteran MMA referee “Big” John McCarthy said there’s still a lot more to be done when it comes to creating a healthier environment – starting with the addition of new weight divisions to bridge the current gaps.

“It cracks me up how people can look and sit there and say, ‘You can’t have a 135-pound guy fight an 185-pound guy. That’s 50 pounds. That’s crazy. You can’t do that. That’s ridiculous,’” McCarthy told MMAjunkie Radio. “There is no difference between that happening at 135 and 185 and a guy that is 215 fighting a 265-pound guy. It’s the same. Because they’re bigger, it’s like, ‘Oh it’s OK.’ No, it’s not. It’s the exact same thing that is going on, and the bigger guy has this bigger advantage, and we need to do things to protect fighters.”

“What was being proposed is getting rid of the 170-pound weight class, putting in a 165 and 175 (division) so we have added one weight class. We have a big gap between 185 and 205, so we’re going to put one between – 195. So there’s a second added weight class.”

And there could be another.

“And then the one that most promoters, especially (UFC President Dana White), are not going to like, is the one that I think is the most important,” McCarthy said. “We need to put in a cruiser weight, something between that 205 to about 225. Some say 230.”

For McCarthy, who is also a member of the Association of Boxing Commissions’ rules committee, this doesn’t mean MMA should take a page out of boxing’s book and “overdo” it.

But, concerned with the sport’s particular dynamics of constant deprivation and rehydration, the veteran official said the job is not done when it comes to making sure the athletes are safe.

“There’s no professional sport that says, ‘We’re going to starve and dehydrate your athletes and expect them to perform,’” McCarthy said. “That’s only in MMA and some with boxing. Look at professional football, baseball, basketball – they’re all having all these chefs to feed their athletes so they get optimum performance. But we’re starving and dehydrating (MMA fighters).

“We know through studies that having more time allows the brain to absolutely come back and rehydrate and be safer for the fighters in that position. So the next step is, we do need to start bringing in different weight classes.

“And that’s part of the whole process. There’s a multistep process in this entire weight-cutting situation. Right now we’ve only done one step. We need to do about three or four to make it to where it’s going to be effective to everyone.”

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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