Robert Garcia: Canelo should fight Mayweather Jr. at 147 if he wants the fight so bad

By Boxing News - 05/09/2013 - Comments

canelo4534By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Robert Garcia doesn’t see any point in Floyd Mayweather Jr. fighting the much heavier WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez at 154 because he sees that as being too much of an advantage for Canelo because he’s so much heavier than Mayweather and stronger than him.

Garcia sees Canelo – and Sergio Martinez – as being guys in a bigger weight class and if they want to fight Mayweather so badly, then they should melt down and fight him at 147 instead of trying to get him to come up to their weight classes.

Garcia said to esnewsreporting.com “Canelo’s just too big. Why should Mayweather go up to 154 to challenge somebody that strong and that powerful? If he [Canelo] wants to fight him, then [he should] come on down to welterweight. See if Canelo can do that.”

We already know the answer to that. Canelo won’t even try to melt down to welterweight because he couldn’t even make the 150 pound catchweight for his fight for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title two years ago in his fight with welterweight Matthew Hatton. Canelo came in at 151.8 lbs, and Hatton let him get away with it by still agreeing to fight.

If Mayweather was to fight Canelo at 147, I could see Canelo saying yes to the idea, but then coming in way over the limit the day before the fight, putting Mayweather in the position to either say no to the fight and walking away or taking it anyway and facing a guy that would likely be just as heavy as he usually is.

That’s the whole problem with agreeing to fight Canelo. If Mayweather decides to fight Canelo at 154, then Canelo would make the weight the day before the fight and then likely rehydrate up to over 170s, possibly 175. Mayweather, as usual, would walk into the ring at 150 lbs and be giving up over 20 pounds in weight.

If Mayweather and Canelo agree on Canelo fighting him at 147 or a catchweight of 150, there’s nothing to keep Canelo from saying yes and then badly missing the weight by coming in as heavy as he usually does for his fights.

With millions of dollars at stake for the fight, Mayweather isn’t going to back out if Canelo comes in way over the limit because it would cost him too much money. That means Mayweather would be putting his unbeaten record on the line against a fighter that potentially weighs as much as a super middleweight or light heavyweight by the time Canelo steps inside the ring.

The only way it would work is if they a weight penalty so that if Canelo came in over the limit, he’d be penalized $1 million for every pound over. Also, they’d have to have the same weight penalty for a rehydration limit, so if Canelo made weight at 147 but then rehydrated up past the rehydration limit of say 154, then he’d be charged $1 million for every pound he comes in over.

So if Canelo comes into the fight weighing 172 pounds and the rehydration limit was 154, then Canelo would owe Mayweather $18 million. I think that would be a fair deal because Canelo would likely work hard to make sure he made the 147 pound limit and then didn’t gain back more than 7 pounds for fear of getting hit with the rehydration penalty.



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