Cutting weight is a tough but necessary part of most fight camps. MMAViking’s Daniel Schälander had the opportunity to follow along the latest Swedish UFC signee Rostem “Kurdimus Prime” Akman (6-0-0) as he shed the final pounds until stepping on the UFC scale for the first time.
Thursday evening
Team Akman started the cut on thursday evening. It was a lighter shorter session to crawl closer to the 170lb limit. Teammate Petter Öberg joined Rostem in the sauna as moral support. Overall it was an easy session as Rostem was already fairly close to target weight as his last fight at Superior Challenge 19 was only three weeks ago.
Friday Morning
Come friday the team stepped up the intensity to get down to the welterweight limit. Rostem started the session at 06:00 in the morning to make sure he was on weight by 09:00 for the official weigh ins. Fewer smiles this morning despite having always funny Team Sweden IMMAF fighter Hoger “Gracie” Salih by his side for the morning cut. Rostem had no problem making the weight and was among the first fighters of the day to step onto the scale.
