I ask because Friday night I was supposed to fight, and for the third time in six months, I had my opponent drop hours before the match (the day after weigh ins).
Because this keeps happening, I’m so frustrated, it really makes me reconsider the entire thing (or at least competing amateur).
It seems like kick-boxing (can’t find amateur full-rules MT in my area) is really the worst. The amature MMA promotions seem much more “together”, and better at getting people to show up.
But I can’t help but feel like my luck has been particularly bad these past few months.
Friday I had TWO opponents drop. Original opponent came in almost 10 pounds over-weight. They found another opponent for me. He dropped around 1pm the day of fight. Original opponent said he was still game for the fight if I’d take it, so I did. 15min before fighter call we get a text from him saying he’s pulling out.
Ammy MMA near me is popular, but there is a local “gym” that puts its fighters out there to die. They all come in overweight and under-trained, and because this crap gym runs the promotion too they all get fights. Most don’t stick around for a second fight, and I’ve never seen one with more than three, there’s a lot of churn. Not very many standup-only promotions, but the same number of quality ones.
As for reputable promotions, I was traveling about 2 hours to get to them, but if I was willing to do that there were plenty. Of course, that put several large military bases in range, and there are a lot of guys for every style in the Army and USMC.
This has happened to me as well in the past, one guy dropped the fight because he saw a video of me at a bjj tourney, and apparently he didn’t want to roll with me… one of my training partners had an entire fight card closed on him from a amateur MMA group, and another one of his opponents was significantly overweight, so my friend gave him a 10 lbs grace the dude still didn’t show up light enough for that. Amateur sucks, my next fight is going to be pro
[quote]EllisUFC wrote:
This has happened to me as well in the past, one guy dropped the fight because he saw a video of me at a bjj tourney, and apparently he didn’t want to roll with me… one of my training partners had an entire fight card closed on him from a amateur MMA group, and another one of his opponents was significantly overweight, so my friend gave him a 10 lbs grace the dude still didn’t show up light enough for that. Amateur sucks, my next fight is going to be pro [/quote]
Yeah. The entire point of amateur (at least for me) is to get experience, but in the last six months for the most part all it’s been getting me experience in is cutting weight. (This last cut I did down to 170 starting at 190 and was back to 188 by fight time the next day feeling good - for a fight that didn’t happen.)
It happens, unfortunately it’s about accepting it and continuing to work hard towards your goal
On my last mma fight my opponent dropped out of the fight, i only knew my new adversary one week before the fight.
On situations like this is more about trusting your strongest assets than devising a strategy due to the probable impossibility of knowing who your opponent will be.
Heck, even pro fights on smaller promotions end up being like this on Brazil
[quote]comus3 wrote:
Why not just fight pro? At least you get a little cash or at least in theory. [/quote]
Because your record is everything. starting out pro and losing your first few fights will put your career in a bad spot really fast. when a fighter starts out he has to protect his record so gain the experience in the amateurs before getting in there to fight.
What are the rules like in your state? Here in GA, we have to wear shin pads, and 6 ounce gloves. Regular ammy can’t ground and pound to the face, only the body, no knees to the face, and no elbows. Once you’ve had 3 fights, you can ground and pound. Very lame actually, it does not prepare you for pro at all.
On the other hand, I’ve only had 1 dropped fight out of 5, so I can see why they changed the rules. I guess minimizing the chance of getting injured makes it more worth it to fight for free, but like I said, I dont’ think it prepares you for pro.
Unfortunately the fight world is full of people who want to fight, but don’t have the balls to once it comes time to do so. My recommendation (since you’re looking for experience) is to set up fights with people who have a couple of fights under there belt. At least you know they are willing to go through with it. What weight division do you fight in btw?
[quote]ugaMMA411 wrote:
What are the rules like in your state? Here in GA, we have to wear shin pads, and 6 ounce gloves. Regular ammy can’t ground and pound to the face, only the body, no knees to the face, and no elbows. Once you’ve had 3 fights, you can ground and pound. Very lame actually, it does not prepare you for pro at all.
On the other hand, I’ve only had 1 dropped fight out of 5, so I can see why they changed the rules. I guess minimizing the chance of getting injured makes it more worth it to fight for free, but like I said, I dont’ think it prepares you for pro.
Unfortunately the fight world is full of people who want to fight, but don’t have the balls to once it comes time to do so. My recommendation (since you’re looking for experience) is to set up fights with people who have a couple of fights under there belt. At least you know they are willing to go through with it. What weight division do you fight in btw?[/quote]
I fight at 170. For MMA the ammy rules are the same as the pro, only shorter rounds and maybe not kicks to grounded opponents. But most of the fights are on Indian land, so the ammy/pro rules are exactly the same for most fights other than the round length.
OP what state do you fight in? I’ve heard my friends talk about guys dropping fights all the time, but I know that a company out of Nebraska VFC (victory fighting championship) doesn’t seem to have that issue. I’m sorry to hear guys are dropping fights against you. Maybe you should be less intimidating!