Reinier de Ridder Swears Off 185 for Good: 'Never a Middleweight Again'

Reinier de Ridder is done torturing himself to make 185 pounds. The Dutchman confirmed he'll never return to middleweight after making his light heavyweight debut against Roman Dolidze at UFC Sacramento this Saturday, and he's not shy about why. He cut weight six times in a little over a year, and his body finally sent the invoice.

The math behind the move is brutal. De Ridder opened his UFC run 4-0, stringing together wins that included a submission of former champ Robert Whittaker and a decision over unbeaten prospect Bo Nickal (now 9-1). Then the calendar caught up with him. In his fourth booking of 2025, he faded so badly against Brendan Allen — the No. 4 middleweight at 27-7 — that his corner pulled him. He looked equally lifeless dropping his next fight to Caio Borralho.

The Cut Was the Fight

De Ridder isn't pointing fingers. He said yes to every fight the UFC offered, and every offer came with a good name attached, so he owns the fallout. But he's blunt about what all that dehydration did: it wrecked his recovery in camp, forced him to slash calories to dangerous levels, and, in his words, trashed his hormone levels. An extreme cut like the one top middleweights endure, he argues, is fine twice a year, max. He did three times that.

The part that clearly frustrates him is the pointlessness of it. Everybody makes 185, he said, then everybody rehydrates to 210 or 215 by fight night. So two men weigh in identical and step into the cage identical — after both nearly killed themselves to get there. He gets why the system exists: refuse to cut and you're spotting a legit killer 25 pounds, which is too much. Five or ten, fine. Twenty-five is a problem.

His bigger worry is safety. De Ridder admits he doesn't have a clean fix, but he believes something has to change before a fighter pays the ultimate price. Making weight, he said, dominates the mind before the fight even registers as a priority — which he considers exactly backwards.

What's Next at 205

Since committing to light heavyweight, de Ridder says he feels like a different athlete in camp. He's eyeing the same fast start he got at 185, and he thinks a finish over Dolidze could vault him toward a top-10 opponent quickly. He's also noticed the middleweights he used to share a division with drifting up to 205 anyway — so the matchups he wanted may follow him regardless. First things first, Saturday in Sacramento.