UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira left the middleweight division without completing a trilogy against Israel Adesanya largely because the weight cut to 185 pounds became too punishing on his body. To put that into real numbers, Pereira admitted on Ariel Helwani’s show that during his light heavyweight debut, he walked into the arena weighing around 103 kg (approximately 224–225 lb), and even at middleweight he reportedly entered the cage closer to 210 lb. Joe Rogan once described weight cutting as a form of “ cheating that everybody agrees to ,” and while nearly every fighter does it, the toll can be brutal.

Although his exact walk-around weight isn’t officially known, Alex Pereira is reportedly around 230 pounds. That meant cutting more than 50 pounds to make middleweight

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