James Irvin’s Miserable Trip To Middleweight

When James Irvin announced his intentions to drop to 185 pounds from his normal 205 there was no one more skeptical than me. Irvin had always been a guy with an action figure physique and to cut 20 pounds from a frame lacking in fat was going to take either losing muscle (strength) or a massive amount of dehydration before the weigh-ins (energy).

When Irvin showed up to the UFC on Versus 1 weigh-ins for his first fight in a year I don’t think anyone was expecting to see this: