I'll be competing as a middleweight this weekend, 155 to 169.9. I suspect I'll be fighting guys who are weighing 175 come Saturday morning.
So be it. I hit the scale at 159.0 exactly after training this afternoon. I would have needed to be significantly lower, like two pounds lower, to have a decent shot at 154.9 by Friday (to say nothing of Thursday night). So rather than kill myself trying to act like a professional fighter, I'm taking the old man's way out at registering at the higher division.
At the regular tournaments, the ones we sponsor and the ones the Machado guys out of Spokane sponsor, I'd only be concerned about making 158.9. But the guy who runs the Revolution events is a 135 pounder himself, I am convinced that has something to do with the fact that the weight classes, especially the lighter ones, have a downward shift.
The thing of it is that the Revolution tournaments might be the main thing in town. We haven't sponsored an event in awhile and its been even longer since the Spokane guys have. I don't mind that per se: three tournaments a year is a good minimum for the area. But that means getting used to competing with the middleweights if I don't work my weight lower-which I'm not convinced I want to do.
At this point, I think my goal should be to become the healthiest, fastest, strongest 160 pounder I can be and let the weight classes fall where they may. There's something to grappling with larger guys that I like: they are nowhere near as tricky to keep up with as the lighter guys, even if you can ultimately muscle the lighter guys around every now and then.
Nothing in the gameplan changes: takedown, pass guard, mount, submit.
