Daniel Santos Hits the Scale at 146 for UFC 333, Proving His Featherweight Move is the Real Deal

Daniel Santos stepped onto the scale on Friday and hit 146 pounds for UFC 333, which might be the least dramatic thing he has done in years. According to MMA Fighting, the Brazilian featherweight is officially locked in for his bout against Bolaji Oki.

For anyone looking at the betting board, a drama-free weigh-in is exactly what you want to see. Santos hitting the non-title featherweight limit on the dot means we can actually focus on the fight instead of wondering if his kidneys are shutting down in a sauna somewhere.

"MMA Fighting reported the official weigh-in result of 146 pounds."

This is a big deal for a guy whose career was recently on life support. Santos spent his early UFC days draining himself to make bantamweight. He even had an opponent, Julio Arce, miss weight against him in his 2022 debut. After a brutal stretch of health issues wiped out nearly two years of his prime, Santos finally realized that starving yourself is a terrible base for mixed martial arts.

He linked up with the UFC Performance Institute, fixed his nutrition, and permanently moved up to 145 pounds. The results were immediate. He came back at UFC 315 in Montreal, looked like a completely different athlete, and swept the scorecards.

It helps that he spends his training camps at Chute Boxe Diego Lima in São Paulo. When your daily sparring partners include Charles Oliveira and Ian Machado Garry, you either figure out how to be a professional or you get used as a heavy bag. Santos clearly chose the former.

Now sitting at 13-3 overall and 4-2 in the UFC, Santos has a chance to prove his career reset is permanent. He gets Oki next at UFC 333. If the new-and-improved, fully hydrated version of Santos shows up in the cage the way he showed up to the scale, the featherweight division has a very violent problem on its hands.