A lot has changed in Ismael Bonfim's life and career ahead of Saturday's fight with Axel Sola at UFC Abu Dhabi, and he's confident that it will all reflect positively in his performance—and overall health.
Bonfim hasn't entered the octagon since November of 2025, when he stepped on the scale at 161 pounds (five pounds over the non-title limit) for his lightweight bout with Chris Padilla. "Marreta" was stopped late in Round 2, and now tells MMA Fighting that making it into the cage was already a challenge on its own.
"I relied too much on dehydration," Bonfim said of his weigh-in struggle, not a first since joining the UFC. "I got to fight week still needing to lose 22 pounds. I was bringing it down little by little, and on the day of the weight cut I still had 8.8 pounds left. I managed to lose 6.6, but with about 2.2 still to go, I just couldn't do it anymore. I'd stay in the sauna for 30 seconds and my body would already start cramping. I was getting cramps I'd never felt in my life, like cramps in my neck. That's when we decided to stop the weight cut. The previous times I'd made that kind of cut without any issues, so we thought losing 22 pounds during fight week would be manageable, but it wasn't. This time we started working on it much earlier."
Bonfim said "the situation was really bad" when he arrived at the UFC APEX for the official weigh-in and later collapsed before officially missing weight.
"I was standing on the scale, before the official weigh-in, and suddenly got a cramp in my neck," Bonfim said. "I collapsed on the floor and they called the doctor. The doctor checked me and said, 'You're going to be the first one to weigh in.'"
#bonfim #life
Bonfim hasn't entered the octagon since November of 2025, when he stepped on the scale at 161 pounds (five pounds over the non-title limit) for his lightweight bout with Chris Padilla. "Marreta" was stopped late in Round 2, and now tells MMA Fighting that making it into the cage was already a challenge on its own.
"I relied too much on dehydration," Bonfim said of his weigh-in struggle, not a first since joining the UFC. "I got to fight week still needing to lose 22 pounds. I was bringing it down little by little, and on the day of the weight cut I still had 8.8 pounds left. I managed to lose 6.6, but with about 2.2 still to go, I just couldn't do it anymore. I'd stay in the sauna for 30 seconds and my body would already start cramping. I was getting cramps I'd never felt in my life, like cramps in my neck. That's when we decided to stop the weight cut. The previous times I'd made that kind of cut without any issues, so we thought losing 22 pounds during fight week would be manageable, but it wasn't. This time we started working on it much earlier."
Bonfim said "the situation was really bad" when he arrived at the UFC APEX for the official weigh-in and later collapsed before officially missing weight.
"I was standing on the scale, before the official weigh-in, and suddenly got a cramp in my neck," Bonfim said. "I collapsed on the floor and they called the doctor. The doctor checked me and said, 'You're going to be the first one to weigh in.'"
#bonfim #life
6 days ago
