Luke Rockhold believes ‘the UFC played Charles Oliveira to get power in their hands’


Luke Rockhold believes ‘the UFC played Charles Oliveira to get power in their hands’

Luke Rockhold believes the UFC wronged Charles Oliveira at UFC 274

Luke Rockhold knows a thing or two about people coming in overweight for a scheduled fight in order to gain advantages over their opponents. The former middleweight champion, who lost his title to Michael Bisping in their rematch had a chance to fight for the undisputed gold via the means of winning an interim title bout against Yoel Romero at UFC 221. However, Romero stepped onto the scale at 187.7 lbs and was deemed ineligible to win the title.

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Luke Rockhold
Luke Rockhold believes he has a real shot at beating Israel Adesanya and regaining his middleweight title

For the uninitiated, weigh-ins in MMA have often been described by the fighters as the most grueling aspect of the sport with many having to cut multiple pounds during fight week to meet their divisional limits. The process of de-hydration and immediate re-hydration after hitting the scales certainly takes a toll on the body. As Romero didn’t have to go all the way with his weight cut it can be argued he had the upper edge in their fight. Rockhold lost that fight via a knockout in round 2, ending all aspirations to immediately gain back his belt.

Related: Paulo Costa and Luke Rockhold set to go head to head at an August date

Luke Rockhold believes the UFC wants leverage over Charles Oliveira

Luke Rockhold
Luke Rockhold reveals that Weight-issues were the reason it took so long to book his fight against Paulo Costa

Luke is now facing his next opponent who had some major weight issues of his own in his last outing, Paulo Costa. Costa, who showed on fight week weighing at 220 lbs for his bout against Marvin Vettori was a whopping, 35 pounds over his contractual weight for the fight. After a week of scandal, the fight ultimately went through at light heavyweight where Costa, came up short in a five-round brawl with the Italian. Rockhold told Brett Okamoto of ESPN, that the delay in finalizing the fight was due to Costa wanting to fight at 185 but being unwilling to face the penalties of missing weight.

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Luke however clarified that not every person who misses weight is looking for a way to cheat, specifically mentioning Charles Oliveria, who was stripped of his Lightweight championship at UFC 274 for being 0.5 lbs overweight. While detailing how some fighters need the weight advantage cause they’re mentally beaten Luke said, “I am not going to say that’s Charles Oliveira’s case cause that was a stupid situation, I don’t think he deserved it” claiming the UFC “Played” with the Champion to gain leverage over him. He said, “I think the UFC might have played him a little bit to get a little bit of their power, in their hands but who knows?”

Rockhold is looking to make his return to Middleweight against for title-challenger Paulo Costa at UFC 277 in July.

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Also Read: “That scale was accurate”- UFC releases an official statement regarding the scale controversy at UFC 274