ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Nathaniel Wood successfully made weight for his bantamweight clash with John Dodson at UFC on ESPN+ 25, but it didn’t come without a little unscripted drama at the official weigh-ins.
When a relaxed and confident Wood entered the room and stepped on the scale, all looked well. But when the commission official announced Wood’s weight as 136.8 pounds, eyebrows were raised.
Wood looked stunned, while his coach, UFC and WEC veteran Brad Pickett, was equally surprised, and immediately stepped in to check the scale himself.
In what might be a first for a UFC event in recent memory, Wood remained on the scale as his coach checked his weight, then pointed out to the commission official that he had, in fact, read the scale incorrectly before the Brit’s weight was re-read as 136 pounds, making him official for his fight in Rio Rancho on Saturday night.
MMA Junkie caught up with Pickett in the aftermath of the weigh-in session, who explained how the situation played out, starting with Wood’s pre-weigh-in check backstage, where he gets on another scale to make sure that he’s in good shape to step out and weigh in officially.
“Back there he was actually 136.2,” said Pickett. “I knew that he was there or thereabouts and if he had to take his pants off, he’d be fine, because they’d said the scales backstage might be a bit heavy.
“So when we got to the scale and (the official) read it out at 136.8, I was like, ‘(Expletive) no way!’ So that’s why I went and checked the scale. And when I had a look at it, I was like, ‘That’s 135.8, not 136.8!’ and he was looking at it and was like, ‘Oh yeah yeah. I see. I’m sorry,’ and he went, ‘Yeah, 136.’
“It’s a (expletive) good job I went and looked at it. I almost had a heart attack and Nathaniel nearly had a heart attack, too!”
Pickett explained that his intervention came as a result of feeling his fighter was being wronged. Pickett is a 39-fight veteran of the game, who never missed weight through his career, and Wood has been similarly clear on the scale during his time with the UFC. So when his man was ruled as having missed weight – and by such a large margin – the alarm bells started to ring, and Pickett stepped in.
“In my head I was like, ‘This is wrong. Let me go and check that out’” he said. “I’m lucky that they let me contest it. They might not have let me do that. But in my head it was like, ‘No way is he (expletive) not on weight.’”
With that small drama now behind them, Wood and Pickett are all geared up for Saturday night’s fight with Dodson, with victory for the Brit likely to catapult him toward the division’s big names.
Pickett said “The Prospect” laughed off the incident and was enjoying refueling after his weight cut.
“He’s all good now,” said Pickett. “It’s one of those ones where before the fight all his focus is on his weight cut. Now all his focus is on eating! He’s in very good spirits.”
Nathaniel Wood's coach Brad Pickett recaps his dramatic weigh-in intervention at UFC on ESPN+ 25
