A conspiracy theory which suggested a faulty scale was to blame for Charles Oliveira missing weight at UFC 274 has been debunked.
Oliveira missed weight by half a pound ahead of his lightweight title defence against Justin Gaethje last weekend. The Brazilian was stripped of his belt but went on to choke out Gaethje in the first round, meaning the 155lb title is now vacant.
'Do Bronx' insisted he had made weight and was visibly confused after being told he was heavy on the scale. Norma Dumont and Ariane Carnelossi, who also competed on the card, claimed the scale was reset overnight, with many fighters finding out they were half a pound heavier than they thought on the morning of the weigh-ins.
But the UFC's Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Marc Ratner, has now clarified the situation whilst talking on the 'Unlocking the Cage' radio show. "The official scale, which is the one they weighed in on Friday with the athletic commission, 28 of the fighters made weight,” he said.
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"I’m very sure that there was nothing untoward on that scale. That scale was accurate. What people are talking about, the night before, there’s a scale where the fighters can come down and check their weight. Some fighters wanted to change the scale from pounds to kilograms, which you can do, and I think that may have knocked it."
To avoid the same problem happening for future events, UFC president Dana White said the promotion will now have a security guard oversee the calibration of the practice scale to match the one used by the state athletic commission licensing the event.
Twenty of the fighters competing at the event weighed half a pound over the championship limit for their respective weight class, adding to the theory that the scale was inaccurate. But Ratner insisted that the official scale was accurate on the day of the weigh-ins.
'We don’t have any proof of anything, but it may have knocked the [practice] scale out of calibration. When we found out that there was a problem with the scale early on Friday morning somewhere around 8 or 8:30, we got another scale that was calibrated and put it out there," he continued.
“I am not sure what time that Charles or his camp came down on Friday,” Ratner said. “But he’s saying that he checked the weight on Thursday night, and he was fine. But I can say for sure that Friday there was nothing wrong with the official scale.”
