Forget what will happen if there’s rain and thunder on Sunday, June 14th, when the UFC takes a seven-fight card to the White House. The big thing that fighters are concerned about coming into this historic event is hot weather with plenty of humidity.
A torrential downpour or delay due to lightning could mean disaster, but that’s not really something an athlete can do anything about. Preparing to compete outdoors on a sweltering day is, and many of the top fighters from UFC Freedom 250 are working
hard to acclimatize themselves to the general evening temperatures around Washington D.C, which are currently hitting 95 degrees and 83% humidity.
Alex Pereira isn’t a many of many words, so we’ll just share this video of him training with his coaches out by the Washington Monument.
He’s not the only one preparing.
“I put myself in the sauna before my workouts so I can work out with my body heat elevated,” main event fighter Justin Gaethje said during Wednesday’s UFC White House media day. “Or I go in the sauna mid-workout and really peak my temperature so that I have to perform in that atmosphere. All I can do is try to replicate the conditions I’m going to be in. But I have been here the last few days and gone out around the time I’m going to fight and it’s been nice. Nothing compared to the sauna.”
“Humidity is a real thing,” Sean O’Malley told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “It will get your heart rate higher than it typically would be inside an air-conditioned environment and as a fighter, your goal is to keep your heart rate low. That’s the biggest thing.”
“I train down in hot, humid, bug-filled South Florida,” Michael Chandler said. “We’ve trained outside a bit, hit some pads outside and moved around outside. But I’m not going to sit here and say I’ve done a whole lot of training outside for this … More than anything, if I say I’m stacking myself up against and opponent and you add these extra variables, I like my chances 10 times out of 10 of handling it better … And I certainly like my chances [in] 100 degrees and humid better than my opponent.”
Plenty of MMA fights have gone down outside in all sorts of weather conditions, but these are definitely the biggest, most important UFC fights that have ever taken place outdoors. Adding in factors like heat or water on the canvas add an extra factor of unpredictability to matches where the smallest thing could change a fighter’s career forever. For fans watching on Paramount+, it’s all part of the excitement.
