Instead of catchweights why not just limit the fight night weight?

I thought about that, it would actually be a good proposition

 

Yeah, who not have Williams fight Vitali or Vlad, Hell, even Valouev?!

 

your right, the whole catchweight thing, IMO is becoming a disturbing trend, as.

1. look how many divisions boxing has to begin with, 143, 145, why not 147? and on top of that fighters already cut a fair amount of weight to begin with, why throw on the 1 or 2 or extra pounds of weight cutting? Yes it's only 1 or 2 pounds, but if it's such a small difference why do it in the first place?

145, 147, they're both Welterweight, so just fight at the Welterweight limit because you risk some fight time credibility with making your opponent weaker on fight night.

and after all most of the recent catchweight bouts IMO were devalued cuz they didn't really prove anything in the big scheme of things .. take the following

Jones-Trinidad at 170 ... RJJ fights at Light Heavy, no biggie for him dropping 5 pds, but Tito, has never been over 160, so to add 10 pounds and skip over a whole division (Super Middle), to fight at 170, besides a nice pay day, what does Trinidad get from the fight?

Pavlik-Taylor at 166 .. contractually obligated rematch, so it can't be faulted that much, and Pavlik won yet again.

Abraham-Miranda at 166 .. Abe broke his jaw, and won a controversial (some say Abe was looking to stop when the jaw broke) close decision to Miranda at Middleweight, Edison Miranda now fighting at Super Middle and wanting a rematch, so Abraham jumps up from 160 to kick Edison's ass in a 3 knockdown beat down.

Hopkins-Pavlik and Hopkins Winky .. in the case of Hop/Winky, you have Wink going from Middleweight, skipping Super Middle, to fight B-Hop for the Ring Light Heavyweight title, turned out the fight was wildly boring, and Wink was too small for 170

and with the Pavlik fight, yes it was a huge win for Hopkins, but Pavlik at the time was and still is the WBC/WBO and Ring Middleweight Champ .. he losses for the first time, fighting 10 pounds higher ... okay and?

im sure there's more catchweight fights, those were the biggest (most being PPV) that I could think of.

 

they stopped same day weigh ins due to deaths and injury caused by extreme dehydration, with the idea being that the extra time meant fighters were better hydrated.

Of course, boxers now exploit this to the extreme, and fighters of 20-30 years ago would probably all be fighting 1 or 2 weigh classes lower if they were around today.

Todays welterweights (a lot of them anyway) are yesteryears middleweights.

 

What happens if the fighter breaks the weight gain rule on fight day?

 

Crap.....a fighter like Pac would still be at a disadvantage fighting as a welterweight if the other fighter were allowed to go up all the way up to 155 lbs.......

......I've always said that the best way is to have fighters fight at their natural weights, and the only way that is going to happen is to go back to same day weigh in......

.....the reason they went away with same day weigh in's is because a select few were weakening themselves and stepping into the ring bone dry......

.....the fact of the matter is that most fighters did it properly and fought at their natural weight class.

Those few who did it improperly are going to keep doing it no matter if the weighin is the day before or the day of.

Same day weighin's would make for more competitive and fair fights, its just so elementary.

 

Which is exactly why there should only be one weighin.:yep

 

How about instead of catch weights for the fighters
Allow the smaller many thinner gloves? Have your pre-fight weight requirements then official reweigh in before fight. Have a sliding rule for X # of pounds gain equals X number of ounces of your opponents gloves.
Then it would almost be like all the KOs in MMA.
Not to hard when you dont have 10 ounces of foam over your hand.


Never happen but a thought.

 

Weight does'nt translate to punching power.....so no, its a bad idea.

 

I agree. Same day weighins.

What you get now is even worse than what used to happen. Guys that continually go bone dry to make a weight limit get an advantage over guys that don't **** with their health, in the fact that they get to fight 1 or 2 weightclasses below their natural weight.

When I hear guys complain about being weight-drained, I always think "well then fight in the right division, dumbass"

 

i was about to say the same thing about what thesandman points out about avoiding ring deaths due to dehydration..weigh in the day before fight night would be good for a fighters health and safety..however, i also agree with both of you that there should be limits to weight gains during fight nights...lets say not more than five pounds of the weight limit on night of the fight..this would surely avoid unfair practice of gaining too much weight on night fight nights, minimize catch weights, and promote discipline and profesionalism during training...etc..

 

Exactly, it has always bothered me that fighters like Arturo Gatti and Oscar DLH, would dehydrate substantially to make weight, and then gain 12+ lbs by fight time......

A fighter like DLH would matchup with a fighter like Maromero Paez and Genaro Hernandez coming up from the Jr. lightweight ranks......fighters coming up to face him and who would'nt gain more than 2 or 3 lbs after weighing in........DLH would weighin at 135 lbs and then come in fight night at above the welterweight limit, giving him an enormous advantage over the smaller fighter handpicked and moving up to face him.

Alot of these DLH and Gatti fights would have been alot more competitive had there been same day weighin's.....
.....but instead, the system rewards fighters who dehydrate to make weight, instead of the fighter who does it properly.

 

Everyone has same rules, so you there is no real advantage eitherway.