By Dan Ambrose: The World Boxing Council is reportedly considering fining fighters that pack on too much weight after they rehydrate following their weigh-ins, according to the Los Angeles Times. The WBC could fine a fighter if they put on more than 5% of their body weight after they make weight.
If the WBC does go ahead with this measure it would have to be a stiff fine for it to be a something that fighters would avoid. With the advantages being incredibly high for fighters that melt down 15 to 20 pounds to fight smaller guys, it would have to be an especially stiff fine by the WBC to get these fighters to resist the impulse to fight three to four divisions below natural weight class. Being a lot bigger than their opponents fighters that can’t compete against guys their own size, so it’s something that will continue until one of the sanctioning bodies does something about.
Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is a perfect example of a fighter that melts down from high weights to get down to 160 to fight smaller guys. Chavez Jr. then rehydrates up to 180+ and is effectively a cruiserweight fighting a middleweight. That’s three divisions higher than the guys that Chavez Jr. is fighting. It’s a huge advantage for him, because he’s one of the rare fighters that doesn’t weaken from having shifted 20 pounds of water weight in a short period of time. We’ve seen how the much heavier Chavez Jr. was able to bully lighter fighters like Andy Lee, Marco Antonio Rubio and even Sergio Martinez to a certain extent.
The danger here is that a guys that rehydrate up 20 or more pounds to fight smaller guys could end up hurting their opponents by being so much bigger than them. Picture WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck, a huge puncher, melting down routinely to make weight at 160, and then rehydrating back up to cruiserweight so that he could belt the lights out of whoever he’s fighting. It’s not fair and it’s potentially dangerous for both the fighter that’s on the receiving end up the blows from a huge cruiserweight-sized fighter and also for the fighter that’s putting back on the weight because they could hurt themselves through the dehydration process.
The sanctioning bodies need to do more than just fine fighters. They need to protect the fighters by not allowing this to happen. If a fighter balloons up 15 to 20+ after rehydrating then that fighter shouldn’t be allowed to fight, period. Sadly, it’s probably going to take a serious injury or fatality to get the Boxing Commissions and the sanctioning bodies to outlaw this practice of fighters gaining a ton of weight after weigh-ins and see it something that is just as dangerous as a fighter that is gaining an advantage by using performance enhancing drugs. Getting hit by someone that outweighs you by 15 to 20+ isn’t fair and it’s potentially dangerous.
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