MKTG1009 Public Relations Theory and Practice: Media Audit

MKTG1009 Public Relations Theory and Practice: Media Audit

Name and detail of the organization:

UFC & ONE FC

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, more commonly known as UFC is the leading MMA organization in the world. The UFC features the words best MMA fighters who compete in an array of martial arts disciplines for the championship title.

Statement describing issue:

When competing in UFC fights to guarantee fair competition fighters are allocated into weight classes. However, to gain advantage over their opponents, contestants participate in weight cutting to drastically decrease body weight essentially allowing them to compete in classes below their normal weight.

As stated by (Liu et al., 2022) participants do so by dehydrating, causing a loss in water weight, which they will then regain before the fight. This means they will be heavier on fight night than the division's legal weight restriction ultimately outmuscling and outweighing competitors.

Possible ramifications:

Current research depicts weight cutting as harmful in the long term with numerous reports of fatalities due to severe dehydration and other long-term health effects. Although weight cutting is done with the intention of bettered performance, the rapid weight gain undergone post weigh in has the opposite effect resulting in a decrease in reaction time, striking accuracy, and strength, as well as slower overall limb movements (Liu et al., 2022).

Nevertheless, in addition to physical weaknesses, fighters also endure severe emotional suffering. In the last several years, two MMA fighters, Leonardo Souza, and later Yang Jian Bing of ONE FC died while trying to stay under a weight restriction (Kostov, 2023).

References:

Liu, Y. et al. (2022) Performance alteration induced by weight cutting in mixed martial artsa biomechanical pilot investigation, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(4), p. 2015.

Kostov, P. (2023) Why do MMA fighters cut weight?, Sweet Science of Fighting. Available at: https://sweetscienceoffighting.com/why-do-mma-fighters-cut-weight/#:~:text=Aside%20from%20the%20intense%20mental,been%20even%20cases%20of%20death.

UFC (2022) About the UFC - the sport, UFC. Available at: https://www.ufc.com/about/sport.

Peacock, C.A. et al. (2022) Weight loss and competition weight in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) athletes, Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology, 7(4), p. 115. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/jfmk7040115.

Handley, R. (2022) How do MMA fighters cut weight?, Absolute MMA. Available at: https://absolutemma.com/blog/how-do-mma-fighters-cut-weight/#:~:text=Weight%20cutting%20is%20when%20you,days%20before%20the%20weigh%2Din.