Pics: Cody Garbrandt is one skinny looking dude coming down to flyweight

UFC 269 on Dec. 11, 2021, doesn’t just feature the hotly-anticipated Lightweight title fight between division champion, Charles Oliveira, and top-ranked contender, Dustin Poirier (or the slightly less anticipated mauling of Julianna Pena by women’s champ-champ, Amanda Nunes). It also includes the Flyweight debut of former bantamweight champ Cody Garbrandt, who will face off against Kai Kara-France.

Kara-France isn’t Garbrandt’s only opponent. The other is the weight cut. This is the first time Garbrandt has tried to make it to 125 pounds, and it’s a big enough cut that some people are wondering how well he’ll be able to perform at the weight. Pictures coming out of Garbrandt’s camp feature “No Love” looking pretty skeletal.

Take a look:

Fighters looking like Christian Bale from The Machinist as they try to make a weight class drop is nothing new. Jose Aldo looked pretty corpse-like the first time he went down to Bantamweight as well, but now he’s fighting there regularly and looking pretty good. The track record of Bantamweights dropping down to Flyweight is slightly more spotty.

T.J. Dillashaw dared to dream he could champ-champ it by dropping down to 125 pounds to fight Henry Cejudo. He went full spooky skeleton during the weight cut, and I’m no doctor, but my diagnosis is the lack of skull juice around his brain contributed to his getting KTFO by “Triple C” in the first round.

So, the question is will Garbrandt be more like Aldo: reinvigorated and competitive? Or, will he be like Dillashaw — dehydrated and chinny? On Dec. 11 we’ll find out!

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