By Dan Ambrose: In looking at the size disparity between WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Andy Lee last Saturday night, I couldn’t help thinking that the sport of boxing needs to either implement rehydration limits or move the weigh-ins back to the day of the fight in order to protect fighters.

The reason for this is because some fighters, who weigh a lot more than the weights limits in the divisions that they’re fighting in, are able to dehydrate down to down sometimes two entire divisions in order to fight at a lower weight class. They then rehydrate after the weigh-in and can come in more than 20 pounds more than their weigh-in weight.

For example, you could have a middleweight weighing as much as 180 pounds or more fighting a middleweight who is barely over 160. This sets up a really nasty scenario where the smaller guy is taking a beating from a much larger fighter. I think this is bad for the sport because it sets up a situation where guys gain an advantage if they’re good at stripping off water weight and then rehydrating back up 20 pounds to fight smaller guys.

If Chavez Jr. had a rehydration weight limit of say 5 to 8 pounds for his fight against Lee last Saturday night, it would have made things a little more even in terms of the weights of the two fighters. I think that would have given Lee a little more of a fighting chance. I’m not saying he’d have won the fight, because he clearly was going to be in trouble by trying to fight Chavez Jr. on the inside, but I think it would have helped him.

With a rehydration limit, fighters like Chavez Jr. would have to fight in a division closer to their actual weight. In Chavez Jr’s case, that would be either light heavyweight or super middleweight. Even super middleweight could be a problem if Chavez Jr. rehydrates to over 180 pounds. He might need to fight at light heavyweight. Unfortunately, I don’t see Chavez Jr. doing well against the likes of Chad Dawson or Tavoris Cloud, because he wouldn’t have a size advantage over those guys.