De Ridder moves to light heavyweight after six brutal cuts left him fighting on empty

Reinier de Ridder will make his light heavyweight debut against Roman Dolidze at UFC Sacramento on Saturday, ending a turbulent run at middleweight that he says was derailed not by his opponents but by the physical wreckage of cutting weight six times in little more than a year.

The Dutch fighter arrived in the UFC with genuine momentum, winning four straight bouts including victories over former champion Robert Whittaker and rising contender Bo Nickal. But an aggressive fight schedule caught up with him badly. Against Brendan Allen, his body shut down entirely and his corner was forced to stop the contest. He then felt similarly drained in a subsequent loss to Caio Borralho, and the pattern finally convinced him to move up a division.

“The last couple of fights, every time I was doing a weight cut, I said this has to be the last one,” de Ridder told MMA Fighting. “Because it was just rough every time — and not only the weight cut, not just during fight week, but also in training camp. It was so hard to recover between sessions because I had to limit my calories so extremely. It just took so much out of me.”

De Ridder is clear that he bears responsibility for accepting so many fights in quick succession. The opportunities were real — quality opponents, high-profile matchups — and he said yes each time. But the cumulative cost was steep.

“I think an extreme weight cut is all right to do twice a year, max,” he said. “I did like six in a little over a year and it just fcks everything up. It fcks your body up. It f*cks your hormone levels up. Everything goes to shit.”

Since committing to 205 pounds, de Ridder says the difference in how he feels during training camp has been stark. He is recovering properly between sessions, eating enough to train at full intensity, and approaching fight week without the mental burden of making weight dominating everything else.

“Mentally, making weight comes first and then the fight is second, which is so wrong,” he said.

Beyond his own situation, de Ridder believes the sport itself needs to confront the culture of extreme weight cutting. He does not claim to have a ready solution, but he is direct about the stakes — warning that if nothing changes, a fighter could eventually pay for it with their life.

He also noted, with some dry humour, that the move may not change his matchup pool as much as expected: “It seems like most of the middleweights are following me to 205, so we’ll have the same matchups anyway.”