By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions sees WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) as having no problems making the 152 lbs. catch-weight for his clash in 9 days against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s).
De La Hoya feels Canelo will make the weight despite the fact that he weighed in at nearly 170 lbs. in the 30-day weigh-in 2 weeks ago, and looked like he had to drain down to get to that weight. If Canelo doesn’t make the 152 lb. catch-weight he’ll be hit with what will likely be a sizable weight-penalty.
There’s no word whether De La Hoya or Golden Boy will personally pay Canelo’s weight penalty if he misses the weight and comes in at 154 lbs. As much as Canelo weighed in his last fight, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll be able to make the 152 lb. catch-weight. He’s struggling badly just to make 154, and now he’s being asked to get down 2 pounds lighter.
De La Hoya said “There is a [weight] penalty but, obviously, Canelo is going to have no problem making the weight whatsoever. He made 153 against Austin Trout with no problems, so Canelo is going to have no problem whatsoever.”
Canelo already failed to make a catch-weight in his fight against welterweight Matthew Hatton in 2011, when they fought for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title. Golden Boy skillfully selected Hatton to fight Canelo instead of junior middleweights Erislandy Lara or Vanes Martirosyan. The catch-weight was set for 150 lbs., and Canelo came in at 151.8 lbs. He missed it by almost 2 pounds.
I think there should be some concern about the catch-weight, because of Canelo’s past failure to make the weight.
It wasn’t easy for Canelo to get down to 153 lbs. He drained down from 172 lbs. to get to that weight, and he looked terrible. That was 19 pounds of water weight that Canelo took off in less than a week, and then put back on 1 day later.
That may help explain why Canelo was already gassed out after 3 rounds, and unable to fight hard for more than 45 seconds of every round without needing rest breaks against the ropes.
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