If light heavyweights are now masquerading as middleweights, Ezzard Charles, using today's methods, could shrink down to 160 without effect in his mid to late twenties. Without effect? To a weight he's been making since 17 when Golovkin was a light welterweight in the amateurs? Doubt.
All I know is it’s pretty well established that most humans can cut somewhere between 10-20lb of water weight via dehydration, from their ‘lean’ or ‘in shape’ weight. Of course there are variations and everyone is different, I’m just talking about averages. It’s fairly typical for, say, a 175lb elite boxer to be able to make 160 on the scales dehydrated. I’m not sure what basis you’d have for speculating that 175lb men of the past couldn’t.
That's the point. They already are cutting weight and dehydrating. To find a further 10-13 pounds on Hagler, who trained like a madman, to cut to make welterweight is farfetched. He wouldn't be able to make a career at welterweight the way Spence has. I think you're confusing yourself by introducing walk-around weight, which has little relevance to the discussion.
That is usually how it works, especially early in a guy's career. If I have a fighter signed with Top Rank, for example, I know that we will be fighting on a particular date and I will know it 60 or more days in advance. They will offer me an opponent as soon as they find one, maybe 30 days out, maybe less and I will accept or reject them. By the time that all plays out and an opponent is finalized, the opponent will be lucky to get a week.
@greynotsoold is spot on about it. It's notorious for promoters to only book opponents on their cards for last minute unless it's a title fight where You have to give opponents certain level of respect. You can see most of the time on undercards, B-side fighter is clearly smaller. It's really hurting the sport, adding another handicap for a B-side fighter - who'se already at disadvantage, usually training half time in addition to regular job.
This content is protected Eddie Hearn claims that Chris Eubank Sr. was cutting 4-8 lbs. on final day, back when weigh-ins were taking place on day of the fight. That's what Barry told him apparently.
A decent piece of evidence is that when they changed from day of to day before weigh ins, boxers didn’t start dropping down 1 or 2 weightclasses; they stayed at the same weight or went up (Spinks, Hearns, Duran, etc.)
Good point, but one could argue maybe it took time for new (Weight-making) techniques to develop once new system was implemented, so initially fighters were not exploiting the system to the same degree They do today.
No, it isn't. It is a result of a change in the rules. A 160 pound man is a 160 pound man. That used to be a middleweight but now, because of a rule change, you can weigh 160 in the ring and be a welterweight because the day before the fight you weighed 147. Has nothing to do with people getting bigger.
It's a recent change and nobody seems able to pinpoint exactly what these new techniques are, nor does anybody seem to take note of how it was easier to get away with using weight cutting drugs back then than it is now.
Duran started getting fat. When he moved up in weight, he was always just an increasingly fatter lightweight who was so good he could fight way out of his natural weight class and still be good. Hearns must have taken up weight lifting. He was thin as a rail to start and was really muscular later on. I also think Hearns was always cutting water to make weight at 147. I think he was just someone able to dehydrate down to the bone to make the scale, then rehydrate sufficiently to be able to fight that night -- and I think he was able to fight in a more dehydrated condition than most can. Just saying, I think you picked two bad examples.
So they moved up in weight but are bad examples? How about Qawi, Holyfield, McCallum, Leonard, Chavez, Camacho, and Paz? Where are the guys who dropped lower when the rules changed?
It's mostly to do with diet. I know I heard Eubank say that to make weght, He just wasn't eating, so He was fasting or starving himself, however You wanna call it. I heard Oscar De La Hoya talking about eating orange a day while making 130... So methods used to be primitive. Right now those guys usually eat pretty well all the way to the day of the fight, but They have dietitian carefully monitoring their every meal - exact time, makronutrients, supplements and all that. You probably noticed that at the weigh in for big fights, fighters team has some kind of special drink ready for a fighters to drink right after He comes off the scales, some kind of isotonic or whatever, then They also have a meal plan for rest of a day to recover and rehydrate a fighter. Those kinds of things - in my view - allow fighters these day to cut more weight and remain effective.
