UFC
Anthony Johnson swears he'll make weight for UFC Fight Night 24 bout with Dan Hardy, reportedly began camp around 230 lbs.
Mar 24, 2011 - 11:50:52 AM Anthony Johnson swears he'll make weight for UFC Fight Night 24 bout with Dan Hardy, reportedly began camp around 230 lbs.

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

One of the storylines coming into this Saturday's UFC Fight Night 24 events is the return of Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, and whether or not he'll be able to get down to the welterweight limit following a 15 month layoff.

By his own admission this week, Johnson allowed his weight to get out of control while out with injury, and according to a report from ESPN's Josh Gross, Johnson ballooned up to the 230s in his weight as late as eight weeks ago when he began his camp for his bout with Dan Hardy on Saturday's card in Seattle.

"I was out that year and it did some damage to me," Johnson said. "I let myself get out of shape. I put that weight on. That was my fault being lazy. The only thing I was thinking about was living the life and having a good time. I'm injured. I'm going to party and have a good time. Then I just finally sucked it up and said I need to get back into the gym, because I don't want to kill myself [in the gym] to fight."

Johnson has missed weight twice in the UFC, both times failing to come anywhere near the 170 lb. limit. Back in 2007, he missed weight by 6 and a half pounds for a bout with Rich Clementi, and then in October of 2009 he missed weight by 6 lbs. for a bout with Yoshiyuki Yoshida. He had attempted to cut 50 pounds over a matter of weeks for that fight, and is in a similar situation here.

Of course, he's assuring fans and the UFC, as well as Hardy, that he's on track to make weight, but until he steps on the scale on Friday it will remain in question. And though he continues to say 170 lbs. is his home, his natural size is likely to necessitate a move up in divisions sooner rather than later.

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Penick's Analysis: Missing weight to the levels that Johnson has done on two occasions isn't acceptable, and hopefully he can get himself to the one pound allowance for this fight on Saturday night. It's not fair to his opponents when he arguably should be fighting a weight class above if he doesn't get himself all the way down to the weight they also need to come in at. It's a little shocking that he was 60 lbs. above this weight limit when he started camp, and though it's not impossible to cut down that much over an eight week camp, it's not necessarily a good thing for him either. He really needs to put serious consideration into a move up to middleweight, because unlike another large welterweight in Thiago Alves, he's also got more height to go with his frame. It's a move he should probably make, but for this weekend, for Dan Hardy and for the UFC hopefully he does what he's supposed to and makes weight on Friday afternoon.