By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. said that it was Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s side that asked for their fight to be at a catch-weight. He didn’t bring it up, but once they did bring it up he asked for it to be halfway between 147 and 154, Mayweather said to Fighthype.com.
However, Canelo’s side wouldn’t agree to a catch-weight down the middle, so when they offered 152, Mayweather said yes to that immediately.
Let’s be frank about this. 2 pounds off from the 154 lb. weight isn’t much of a catch-weight. It should be at 150.5 lbs. if you’re being fair about it, but Mayweather was nice and accepted the 152 when he probably should have refused it.
Mayweather isn’t into catch-weight fights and probably would have taken the fight at the full 154 lb. weight if it was offered to him because he feels like he’ll beat Canelo no matter what he weighs. Mayweather’s adviser Leonard Ellerbe reportedly doesn’t see Canelo being able to win the fight even if he comes into the fight on September 14th weighing as much as a heavyweight after he rehydrates.
Canelo could pull a trick at the weigh-in by coming in over the limit at 154 instead of 152 and taking the weight penalty, whatever it is, so that he doesn’t have to give up any weight. In fact, that’s what I see happening because it doesn’t look like Mayweather has put in a big weight penalty like the one that was being talked about in his failed negotiations with Manny Pacquiao in 2010.
Mayweather isn’t worried about Canelo having a 30 pound weight advantage over him because he sees his skills as being more than enough to beat the red-haired Mexican fighter.
Canelo’s promoter Richard Schaefer really likes Canelo’s chances of winning this fight, saying to mlive.com “It’s going to be a tall task for Floyd Mayweather to keep a young, strong Canelo Alvarez off of him for 12 rounds. That’s what makes this fight so intriguing.”
Comments are closed.