True, but many guys in the lower weight divisions dehydrate themselves down 15 pounds to make the lower weight. Gans fought at his walking around weight, which is a lot healthier than killing your kidneys to fight at a lower weight. Hardly anyone fights at their walk around weight anymore; i think Canelo does as he's a gym rat. Both Crawford and Spence get literally fat, not to mention Fury ballooning up to 300 pounds.
I think Crawford's posted an instagram photo on the scales after thanksgiving and he was somewhere around 170 lbs or so which is, frankly, absurd for someone his height who campaigns at 147. It's even worse considering he used to fight at 140 and even lower. Spence once got into a verbal spar with Andre Berto who claimed he cut more than 30 lbs in an attempt to intimidate Spence and imply he was the larger stronger man--to which Spence noted that in high school when he played sports he used to weigh close to 200 lbs. Looking at how shredded and strong Spence looks and that he regularly spars with the Charlo brothers and holds his own, I definitely believe this story. And if that's the case he's a bit of weight bully, but if he can make it I suppose it isn't illegal. But when fighters say things like this I want to put an asterisk* on their record as they are sometimes enormous compared to their opponents and you also start to wonder just how the heck they can keep that much weight off of them and if there really is anything illegal going on in terms of supplements and re hydration. If I diet, I can lose a couple of lbs in a matter of days with low calorie intake and intense workouts, but I can also regain maybe half that weight just by dining on heavy meals in a couple of days. I really don't see how some boxers can put on more than 15+ lbs overnight just through rehydration and eating solid food in one night before a fight "naturally".
This content is protected The beginning of Joe Gans' auto-bio shortly before his death. The series was never finished, unfortunately. Read the rest at my Telegram channel.
Ain’t it a pity we lost him. Could’ve done a lot to shape boxing had he lived might’ve fostered in a stable of fighters to the likes we’d never seen before.