Khan: Canelo weighed 187 when he fought me

By Boxing News - 07/28/2016 - Comments

Image: Khan: Canelo weighed 187 when he fought me

By Dan Ambrose: Amir “King” Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) says that former WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) was 187 pounds on the night that they fought on May 7 earlier this year in their fight on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. What’s interesting is that HBO didn’t give a rehydrated weight for Canelo to the viewing audience like they normally do for fighters on their broadcasts.

The boxing fans were left to speculate what weight that Canelo weighed in for the fight. Khan is saying that Canelo weighed in at 187lbs, which means he rehydrated 32 pounds after weighing in at 155lbs for their catch-weight fight.

For his part, Khan says he weighed 158lbs on the night after weighing in at 155. Canelo outweighed Khan by 29 pounds if what Khan says is true about Canelo weighing 187 on fight night.

“When he fought me he came into the ring at 187lbs. I was only 158lbs. Canelo says he isn’t the same weight as Golovkin, but what is he talking about! He’s almost as big as a light heavyweight,” said Khan to 7days.ae.

Khan only rehydrated three pounds compared to Canelo’s 32 pounds. As heavy as Canelo is, Khan doesn’t understand why he doesn’t feel that he’s big enough to fight unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, who comes into his fights around 170 to 172lbs after rehydrating. If Canelo’s 187lbs is true, then he would have a weight advantage of 15 to 17 pounds over Golovkin. That should be more than enough for Canelo to agree to the fight.

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says Canelo is only a 154 pounder, and not a middleweight. One of the reasons why Canelo isn’t fighting Golovkin now is that he needs to grow into the middleweight division. If Canelo is weighing 187 pounds, then that makes him a light heavyweight and more than heavy enough to fight at middleweight, super middleweight or light heavyweight. The light heavyweight division ends at 175.

Canelo appears to be a cruiserweight in size, because that division goes from 176lbs to 200. 187lbs fits in nicely at cruiserweight. Granted, Canelo would be a small cruiserweight at 187lbs, but a cruiserweight none the less.

“No, when he caught me it was a right hand that would have knocked anyone out. But beforehand I wasn’t really feeling his shots,” said Khan. “I’m just upset he isn’t taking a chance and a big fight. He is only fighting smaller guys.”

Canelo seems to be doing what former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. was doing when he was melting down to fight at middleweight in his mid-20s, and then rehydrating to have a weight advantage over his opponents. Chavez Jr. was able to melt down to 160 to make the weight for the division for a while. It’s been four years since the last time that Chavez Jr. was able to melt down to fight at middleweight when he fought Sergio Martinez in 2012. Chavez Jr. looked huge in that fight. He was 26 at the time. Since then, Chavez Jr. has been fighting mostly at light heavyweight against mainly middleweights.

Canelo just turned 26 on July 18, and it’s unknown how much longer he’s going to be able to dehydrate down to 155 or 154. If Canelo is weighing 187, you have to wonder how long that he’ll be able to make even 160. He’s doing it now but he’s still pretty young at 26. All good things must end. It’s doubtful that Canelo will be able to make a career out of melting down from the upper 180s to fight at middleweight. That’s got to be really hard on Canelo’s body to take off all that weight. Even if Canelo weighed in right at the middleweight limit at 160 during his weigh-ins, it would be really hard to make a career out of losing 27 pounds to get to the middleweight limit. I think it would be far better for Canelo to move up to either the super middleweight division at 168 or better yet to move to 175, so that he would only have to drain down 10 pounds from 187.

Of course, Canelo probably wouldn’t be a top fighter at light heavyweight or super middleweight, because he wouldn’t have a huge weight advantage over those guys like he would in fighting at junior middleweight and middleweight. But I think it would be more healthy and easier on his body to make weight instead of dehydrating. It’s very risky to lose huge amounts of weight and then put it back on in a short period of time. Putting weight back on after huge losses of water weight can lead to problems like cerebral edema, seizures, low blood volume, kidney failure coma and death, according to the mayoclinic.org.

I don’t know if it’s worth it for fighters to take off huge amounts of weight to fight at a weight that is not designed for them. We only have Khan saying that Canelo was weighing 187 pounds on the night of their fight, but if this is true, it sounds really unhealthy. You have to wonder whether Canelo put too much water weight back on after rehydrating.

“Sometimes, when you’re getting fluids against after being rehydrated, the body tries to pull too much water back into your cells. This can cause some cells to swell and rupture. The consequences are especially grave when brain cells are affected,” according to mayoclinc.org.

It sounds dangerous for fighters to dehydrate huge amounts of weight. If Canelo is rehydrating 32 pounds after making weight, he could be taking a serious risk with his health. It’s hard to imagine a fighter competing after putting that kind of weight back on within 24 hours after a weigh-in. To me, I think the fighter should be resting at home or in a hospital after rehydrating that much.

It’s a good argument for boxing to switch back to same day weigh-ins so that fighters get back to fighting in the correct weight classes designed for their body. When the weigh-in is on the same day of the fight, it makes it too risky for fighters to dehydrate because there’s less time to rehydrate. The problem with same day weigh-ins is that it puts fights at risk because of the potential for a fighter not to make weight. For televised fights, it could be bad for the fighters to go back to same day weigh-ins, because it might lead to a lot of canceled fights when a fighter failed to make weight.

Khan did well for four rounds against Canelo, but then he started to look tired in the 5th. Khan made the mistake of throwing a lazy jab in the 6th round, and Canelo countered him perfectly with a right hand that knocked him out cold.

Canelo is currently scheduled to fight WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) on September 17 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It might be difficult for Canelo to melt down from the 180s to fight Smith. It’s one extra pound that Canelo will need to lose, as he’s been fighting at 155. It might not be a big deal for him to lose that extra pound. However, in Canelo’s fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, Canelo fought him at a catch-weight of 152lbs. Canelo looked weak and very drained at the weigh-in. Canelo appears to be heavier now than he was back then, and it might be really hard on his body to get down to 154 for the Smith fight, especially if he’s rehydrating to 187.

Smith is not well known to the casual boxing fans in the U.S. Having the fight on HBO pay-per-view is an odd choice by Golden Boy Promotions, because pay-per-view fights usually involve two well-known fighters that are matched up in a fight that is seen as a competitive fight. The fight might do well though on PPV because it’s taking place on the Mexican Independence Day holiday weekend, so a lot of fans could purchase it for that reason. It’s not a great match-up like the Canelo vs. Miguel Cotto fight that took place last November.