UFC fighter Yana Santos laid it bare as she explained her past experiences fighting in the promotion.
Santos revealed that in four of her past seven fights, her opponents failed to make weight, but she was persuaded by the UFC to fight anyway. The most recent weight miss happened during her bout with Macy Chiasson at UFC 320.
This past Friday, ahead of UFC 320, Yana Santos expressed anger after Chiasson hit the scale at 137.5 pounds, a pound and a half over the limit for a non-title fight, and ultimately faced only a 25% penalty from her purse for missing weight. Afterwards, Santos immediately called for harsher punishments for athletes who fail to make the contracted weight for a fight.
Perhaps the toughest part of this latest incident was Santos feeling like she had no other choice but to face Chiasson regardless of how much she actually weighed.
“A couple of fights ago when my opponent missed a lot of weight and we were thinking should we take the fight or not, UFC made it very clear that the person who will be punished is me if I refuse to fight,” Santos told MMA Fighting. “So I’m not getting paid, I have a chance to be cut and all these things. It’s like the opponent who missed weight is [not] going to have a problem. It’s me that has problems. So I can’t see that as an option. It is what it is. If I want to keep my job, I have to fight.”
The fighter went on to speak about other situations where she had no choice but to face her opponent despite their weight misses. Yana Santos explained that some fighters who refused to face opponents that missed weight saw their UFC careers end. She pointed to Leslie Smith, who was set to face Aspen Ladd but pulled out after Ladd missed weight.
“I saw this example so many times,” Santos said. “One girl missed weight, the other girl refused to fight and they cut her. It’s happened multiple times, so I don’t want to be in this position. It’s so wrong, the person who did everything correctly will be punished, but it is what it is.”
Yana Santos believes the UFC should enforce harsher punishments for missing weight, rather than just the current 25% deduction from a fighter’s purse. She said fighters have learned to manipulate the system and are now willing to take the penalty instead of putting in the effort to make weight.
“I’m pretty sure if it’s something stronger, we’re going to have fewer people miss weight,” Santos said. “I understand some people have situations and real trouble making weight. We’ve seen many times people shaking on the scale, falling down, losing their mind when they cut weight, but that’s not always the reason.”
In the end, Yana Santos’s frustration speaks to a larger issue fighters quietly face in the sport, one where professionalism sometimes feels like a burden rather than a standard.
