Laureano Staropoli is taking his luck up to 185 pounds.

The Argentine decided to leave the welterweight division and make a new home at middleweight. Staropoli’s (9-3 MMA, 2-2 UFC) UFC middleweight debut goes down next Saturday at UFC Fight Night 189 in Las Vegas, as he takes on Roman Dolidze. Staropoli took the bout on short notice, replacing Alessio Di Chirico.

The 28-year-old fighter struggled to make 170 pounds and felt his performance was being compromised by the weight cut. Now on a two-fight skid, “Pepi” believes it was time to leave welterweight behind.

“I’m coming off two loses and I suffered a lot with the weight, in fact, I didn’t make weight in my last fight,” Staropoli told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “I felt very embarrassed because not making weight for a fight is an irresponsibility for any fighter. I had said in the past, the day that I don’t make weight – because for me it’s a disrespect for the organization and the opponent –that’s the day I’ll change divisions.”

“I walk around 93 kilos (205 pounds) and from 93 kilos to 77 kilos (170 pounds) it’s a long journey,” he explained. “I can probably still make 77 kilos, but then my performance gets hindered and that’s the issue. The fight is against the opponent, not the scale. I feel like fighters today have that very ingrained in their heads that the fight first is with the scale and there’s all this tension and stress not knowing if you’re going to get to the weight or not and seeing if you’re going to be strong or not once you get there.”

Staropoli continued, “Sometimes it looks like you just got cleared to leave the hospital rather than look like you’re getting ready to fight. I’m a guy that weighs 93 kilos, so 84 kilos (185 pounds) is easy. The effort to make 84 kilos is going to be minimal and I’m going to be able to be 100 percent in my fights.”

Staropoli is confident he’ll have a better showing at 185 pounds now that he has less weight to cut.

He had a promising start to his UFC career, but recently suffered setbacks. The Chute Box product had a 2-0 start in the UFC, winning a “Fight of the Night” bonus in his debut win against Hector Aldana and then outpointing former UFC title challenger Thiago Alves. Since then, however, the Argentine suffered back-to-back defeats to Muslim Salikhov and most recently Tim Means.

Determined to get back to his winning ways, Staropoli also sees the change in divisions as a fresh start in his MMA career.

“This is a new start,” Staropoli said. “This is a new start for everything that I’ve been through, for all the lessons life has given me, this is a new beginning for me and not only for me but for everyone who’s behind me because I don’t do this by myself, there’s a lot of people with me. I know that with a win and positioning myself well, I can help a lot of people.”