By Dan Ambrose: Steve Kim is saying that Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t want to come back up in weight to fight the young 22-year-old WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez at 154, and that if the Mexican fighter wants to fight boxing’s number #1 money fighter, he’ll have to come down to 147 to make the fight happen.
Additionally, there will be NO catchweights for Canelo. He won’t get to meet Mayweather halfway between 147 and 154, and they rehydrate up to 172-175 lbs for the fight. If Canelo wants the fight, he has to come down to 147.
I’m hearing also talk of a possible rehydration clause that could be in effect if Canelo does come down to 147.
This would be needed to keep Canelo from somehow making it to 147 and then ballooning up 25 pounds after the weigh-in. We’ve seen former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. do it, so it’s definitely possible for a fighter to put on 20+ pounds of water over night to come into the fight with a tremendous weight advantage.
It wouldn’t be an even playing field if Mayweather stepped inside the ring at 150 lbs. and Canelo came into the fight topping 170 and looking like a tank ready for action.
I don’t think Canelo can make 147 at this point. It’s been three years since he last fought at 147 back in 2010, and I doubt he can make that weight.
A catchweight fight is not good because Canelo already had a catchweight fight with Matthew Hatton in 2011 at 150 lbs, and Canelo missed the weight by nearly 2 pounds, coming in at 151.8. Rather than the fight being cancelled, it went ahead with Canelo with the weight advantage.
I’m wondering if Canelo will say yes to 147 and then badly miss it at the weigh-in. Since so much money will be on the line, Team Mayweather will still likely go through the right and Canelo would have his weight advantage.
The only way to prevent something like this from happening is to make a huge weight penalty of $1 million per pound to make Canelo extra careful about making sure that he comes in below or at the 147 pound limit. Additionally, there would need to be another weight penalty attached to the rehydration limit so that Canelo doesn’t balloon up past whatever weight they come up with.
I think 160 would be a fair rehydration limit for the fight. It would still give Canelo a 10 pound weight advantage over the 150 pound Mayweather. However, the secondary weigh-in would have to be within 15 minutes of the fight because if they have it in the morning of the fight, Canelo could still rehydrate quickly and come into the fight weighing close to 170. You can’t have those secondary weigh-ins in the morning because in this day age water can be put back into a body awfully quickly and it wouldn’t be fair to Mayweather.
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