Julija Stoliarenko was scheduled to meet Julia Avila at UFC Vegas 22 and everything seemed to be going fine right up until the moment that she stepped on the scales, fainting twice as she tried to make weight. Naturally, both fans and UFC employees were incredibly concerned for her health as fainting due to dehydration is not a small thing. This isn’t a one-off for fighters in general either as plenty of big names have had complications arising from cutting weight and they can be even more serious than this. Thankfully, Stoliarenko has released a statement on her official Instagram account and she appears to be in good health after recovering from the scary moment. She explained that it wasn’t so much a matter of a bad weight-cut, as it was a badly-timed one:
“The problem was not my weight cut. It was actually one of my easiest weight cuts in my career. Weight was dropping too fast. The main issue I think was that I made weight too early. Basically the weight ins start at 9 a.m. and I was already on weight at 5 a.m. It was just too long of a time on weight. As everybody knows when you cut weight you can not be on this weight for too long because you’re already at the limit of your dehydration.”
“That was an issue why it all happened. I’m so upset because right now I’m feeling great. I feel ready for a fight. My body feels great. I’m still in good shape. I know that I can fight. It just happened that the athletic commission did not clear me for a fight because we are taking care of the fighters. That situation looked terrible.”
As Julija Stoliarenko pointed out, there’s not a chance in hell that any responsible athletic commission would clear her to fight after seeing that happen and while she’s understandably annoyed at losing out on the chance to compete, it’s in her best interest not to do so after that. Weight-cutting is never something to be taken lightly, so much so that fighters returning from long layoffs will often complete test-runs ahead of a comeback.
