Roach: Khan is going to put on a lot more weight after he weighs-in than he did last time he fought Peterson

By Boxing News - 03/28/2012 - Comments

Image: Roach: Khan is going to put on a lot more weight after he weighs-in than he did last time he fought PetersonBy William Mackay: Freddie Roach plans on having Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s) put on a lot more weight after he weighs-in for his May 19th rematch against IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) compared to the last time Khan fought Peterson last December.

Roach feels that Khan didn’t blow up enough after he rehydrated and he wants him a lot heavier for the rematch. Roach also trains WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who routinely puts on 19-20 pounds after rehydrating following the weigh-ins.

Roach told RingTV “For this fight, he’s going to go with the more traditional way of making weight by drying out like fighters do. We want him to put on more weight after the weigh-in and so he’ll be a lot stronger and as big as Peterson was.”

There’s got to be an art to this because fighters that put on a massive amount of weight generally weakened and sluggish from having dehyrated so badly to make weight class that they’re arguably not fit for because of their huge size. You get a fighter weighing 160+ draining down water weight the week before a fight to get to 140 and then ballooning back up after the weigh-in. You might get mixed results. To be sure, Chavez Jr. is able to do it somehow at middleweight, but a lot of fighters end up weak from losing and putting back on that much water weight.

I think this could backfire on Khan and Roach if he loses a bunch of water weight before the weigh-in because he could end up weak like he supposedly was before his fight against Breidis Prescott in 2008, and we saw how Khan got knocked out in the 1st round in that one. Roach might be giving Khan the bad advice. But look at the bright side, Khan will have a good excuse to make if things don’t work out against Peterson in the rematch. He can blame it on having taken off and put back on too much water weight. That sounds like a good excuse to me.



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