UFC star Reinier De Ridder would fight after gaining 30lb in in the future in consequence of brutal cuts

Reinier De Ridder has opened up about his extreme weight reduction and resultant gain after finally giving up on the cut to 185lb.

The previous ONE FC double champion has struggled to maintain up the pace in his previous couple of UFC fights after being forced to make the total way all the way down to middleweight since leaving Asia. He got off to a flying start within the octagon, but has since lost to Caio Borralho and Brendan Allen.

Who’s the largest threat to Khamzat Chimaev at middleweight?

• Nassourdine Imavov (17-4 1 NC)
• Dricus du Plessis (23-3)
• Sean Strickland (30-7)
• Anthony Hernandez (15-3)
• Brendan Allen (26-7)
• Reinier de Ridder (21-3)
• Israel Adesanya (24-5)
• Caio Borralho (17-2 1 NC)
• Bo Nickal (8-1)

His defeat to Allen saw his coach call the fight off after the fourth round as he battled exhaustion and usually was badly beaten. And after one other loss, he’s moving up officially to light-heavyweight, where he was at his best in ONE FC with their different weigh-in protocols.

Reinier De Ridder moves up officially to finish brutal weight cuts

After a number of years of brutally finding a method to get down in weight, Reinier De Ridder has confirmed that his next fight can be at 205lb. During a fan Q&A on his YouTube page, he also recalled the severity of his cuts, and the way they left him feeling in training on fight night.

It’s standard for fighters to deplete themselves to get to fight weight with a perceived advantage. But De Ridder’s case appears to be particularly brutal as he recalled making the 186 prolonged limit before refuelling and ending up at 215lb just around a day later for fight night.

“So at middleweight I might rise up to love 215lb – so like 96kg or something like that – on fight night,” he recalled. “But I believe the burden cut got worse and worse each time I did it, it was just an enormous stress on my body.

“In ONE I used to fight at 205lb because we sort of didn’t do weight cuts there, we sort of tried to stop people cutting weight with hydration tests and every little thing. My natural walk around weight was like 210lb on the time.

“So I wouldn’t really cut weight, I might just eat just a little less the few days before and just make 205lb the night before very easily.”