Man, I remember tuning in for that Conor McGregor 145 weigh-in. It wasn’t just one specific time, it was kind of a whole era, wasn’t it? Leading up to the Aldo fight especially. There was so much noise around it.
I’d make sure I caught the weigh-ins live if I could. Get home, maybe grab a drink, and pull up the stream. The anticipation was pretty nuts back then. You knew he was a bigger guy, naturally walked around much heavier, so seeing him hit that featherweight limit was always part of the show.
And when he stepped on that scale? Wow. He looked… drained. Like, seriously sucked out. Sunken cheeks, eyes looked different. You could see every single rib. It wasn’t like his usual swaggering self right at that moment on the scale, he looked like he’d been through hell to get there. It was pretty jarring, honestly.
Watching the Transformation
The process itself always got me thinking. Not just Conor, but all these fighters cutting insane amounts of weight. I’d watch him on the scale looking like a ghost, and then 24 hours later, he’d walk into the octagon looking full, healthy, and like a completely different person. It was wild.
I tried to wrap my head around it. How do you even do that?
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Cutting out all the water.
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Super strict dieting for weeks, months maybe.
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The sheer discipline involved.
It wasn’t something I could really relate to doing myself, not to that extreme. Just watching it was intense enough. You see pictures or clips now, and it still looks crazy. He looked absolutely huge for the weight class once he rehydrated, which was obviously the whole point.
It just showed the lengths these guys go to. Seeing him make 145, especially looking the way he did, was a big part of his story back then. Made the fights feel even bigger somehow. Definitely stuck in my memory, that visual of him on the scales at featherweight.
