Fight Weight

Once over, fighters would weigh in on the day of the fight and then gain only a pound or two before fighting -- it was called a fight weight.

These days, the majority of fighters aim to exploit the day before weigh in system by dehydrating to make weight (and then pile on as much as a stone or two prior to fighting). Question is: does this make them less effective fighters?

Is it any coincidence that Mayweather, Hopkins, Klitschko and Froch to name but a few, rarely deviate from their fight weight (even between bouts)?

Depends how easy you make the weight....To me it has to be an advantage to be a stone heavier than your opponent and to be completely rehydrated....

Shouldn't think skill/speed levels are affected..probably the reverse as your body in better shape..

Probably bad on the organs in the long run though..

I have wondered this myself but am not too sure. It obviously works for some who but maybe not for others. Broner and Chavez benefited hugely in my opinion from enjoying monster size gains. But you do wonder what the effect is of draining so much out of your body prior to fighting.

Alvarez against Mayweather for example. This is a guy that would walk around healthy at 185lbs who had to make 152lbs. The training camp would have been a torturous rdeal of makng weight and trying to train on a flimsy number of calories every day. Hardly effective training.

I think this is the reason these Ariza type gurus are so effective these days is because they know how to exploit this system the best. The stength and conditioning gurus are just as imortant as the trainers in a lot of cases. And for many boxers fight camp is basically a weight making excercise.

I think the system in place now is beyond farcical.

You can't fight 12 hard rounds on flimsy calories..

It's an interesting question Haz that requires a two fold answer.

The Welterweights of the past 20 years are a pretty good place to start and i'll try to go through them all one by one.

Mayweather, Whitaker and Pacquiao- Barely rehydrate and to my mind have never looked fatigued in any fights, their ability means they can overcome far bigger men on fight night quite comfortably.

Margarito and Williams- Huge at the weight which but their stamina was slight anomalous. Marg would come on late in the fight like a freight train which could have been helped by his opponents punching themselves out after failing to hurt him and Williams was a high volume puncher with incredibly stamina.

De La Hoya- Again big at the weight despite coming up from 130lbs but tended to wilt in the latter part of fights which cost him on more than one occasion, the Quartey fight being the only fight he won down the stretch.

Mosley- fairly small at the weight but made up for it with incredible strength helped by his weightlifting days in his youth, a slow starter but as he showed against De La Hoya and Mayorga got stronger as the fight went on.

Cotto- looked vulnerable draining himself down to 140lbs and looked more sturdy at the higher weight, reasonably big at the weight but had a habit of wilting in the later rounds.

Trinidad- big upper frame and scrawny legs meant he had a tendency to taste the canvas with regularity but being fairly comfortable at the weight meant he had good powers of recovery.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the boxers who I would regard as the premier Welterweights of recent times haven't rehydrated huge amounts. Margarito relied on his size to wear down his opponents which at the highest level tended not to work but were he to fight at the more natural middleweight limit I doubt he'd ever have been a belt holder. The same is true of Williams who's reach advantages would be lesser at middleweight and thus wouldn't be able to impose his will and style on the better guys.

It works for some but does have its drawbacks but the cream regardless of 24 hour weigh ins usually rises to the top.

But all those fighters are very gifted..

Mosley had plenty of help.

Lets not kid ourselves though CW that he was the only one.

Margarito and Trinidad too for that matter arguably.

I think ped use is rife....Imagine most use them because they think everybody else does