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I wonder why sports with weight categories don't implement floating weight windows? If there is 10kg spread in a given category, place every participant in the

I wonder why sports with weight categories don't implement floating weight windows? If there is 10kg spread in a given category, place every participant in the center of their own category so they always fight somebody at most 5 kg different from them in either direction and adjust points being earned appropriately (based on weight difference and an impact factor of weight in given sport). Then points will be normalized and you can compare skill of underfed ballerina and a sumo fighter directly if they compete in the same sport.

kyuudou 7y ago
This is a constant point of contention. The workaround (at least in BJJ that I know of) generally is to have "open weight" fights in addition to weight-class restricted ones. Everyone's happy usually. Now if they have open sex fights then we can see the underfed ballerina vs. a sumo fighter! It's not as common in MMA, I think. BJJ is often thought to favor the smaller, weaker player but with the less strict ruleset in MMA, open fights aren't as "fair", I think. Physics, basically. Skill level equal, a larger and more muscular and well-conditioned athlete will usually win. An enjoyable exception to this is the classic BJJ vs. wrestling contest in the early UFCs between Royce Gracie, a 6'1" 180lb guy vs. a seeming bear of a man with proven wrestling skills in 6'2' 250lb Dan Severn. If you're not a fight geek (if you are, you surely already know about these 2) it may be kind of boring to watch and more interesting to read or watch a well-informed analysis with pictures and clips, sort of like a "Gracie Breakdown".