Joe Rogan believes the various benefits of mixed martial arts (MMA) will lead to the addition of more weight classes.
There are currently 11 weight classes in the UFC, and only four fighters hold two belts at the same time: Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo. Recently, both Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev had to vacate their belts before moving up to claim titles in the aforementioned weight classes.
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In a conversation with former three-division undisputed boxing champion Terrence Crawford, Rogan explains why an extra weight class would be beneficial.
“I think for MMA, they really need to realize that one of the things that’s stopping weight loss is giving people more weight classes, giving people more options,” Rogan said on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “The idea of only having eight championships in MMA is very, very limiting. … In MMA, if you win two belts, that’s crazy. That’s the only thing anyone’s ever done. The only people who’ve done it have done it in two weight classes.
“No one has done it in three years. (Alex) Pereira will probably try to do it at heavyweight because he weighs about 240 now, which is crazy because he used to fight at 185. If they had more options and they had more weight classes, I think we would have more competitive fights, we would have less extreme cuts, we would have healthier fighters. More champions would be better. There are a lot of guys who could be champions, it’s just they don’t have weight classes.”
UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev, who is currently exploring the idea of moving up a weight class, has been calling out light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. However, Pereira himself is considering moving up to heavyweight.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Joe Rogan thinks more heavyweights are better for UFC
