Getting rid of the dreaded catch weight?

What if fighters were mandated to weigh in to the bottom of their respective weight class? Welter has to come in at 140, super lightweight at 135 etc. Lets explore what that would do. First, it would make the case that a fighter unquestionably belonged at that weight class. Catch weight implementations, arguments, excuses etc. would be eradicated as the catch weight would itself be no longer since everyone is already at the minimum.

Fighters closer to the same size would be competing since the further you are from your required minimum weigh in the more you have to kill yourself to get there. This leaves smaller guys with no excuse since a bigger guy would have to come down further, which to today is known as a small guy advantage called the weight drain. A smaller fighter fighting at the top end/max of what he should be fighting just because he can or more typically, for more money, would do so completely by his own decision and risk with no excuses.


I cannot think of any disadvantage and at the very least it would completely get rid of the word catch weight from our vocabulary. A word which I know everyone is tired of since it is not known how much credit to give a fighter once it's implemented, which makes for endless arguments in which people say "this fighter was obviously drained". Even though it may not have looked like it at all but one could never truly know. Anyone see a reason boxing shouldn't do this?

 

Yeah there'd be some serious growing pains as where fighters belonged would be reshuffled. And I guess we could still have catch weights for guys a division apart but never within the same weight class. I still think it'd be worth it, it would solve many problems and we would see far less catch weights, a problem that's really bad now and only getting worse.

 

The weight classes don't change at all, the boxers just have to conform to the new rules of making the weight for that class. The point is pretty well explained, the further within you are within your own weight class the more it shows you belong there as opposed to being on the outer edge. When you are at the bottom of your weight class it completely rids catch weights occurring within the same weight class, and would severely lessen the occurrence of even one class apart catch weights.

 

Hopefully you didn't think I was making the case for more weight classes, I was not. If your just making a general point it actually works against what I'm saying, if we had more weight classes we would see even more catch weights. I, like many others, hate catch weights, they make it hard to determine how credit a fighter should get and quickly become excuses, ammo for haters, and we never if they were legitimate reasons or not. Catch weights make for highly confusing and frustrating situations.

 

It's a nice thought but it's not reality and I don't think it ever will be. Catch weights are not illegal and there's not much reason it ever should be. So boxers will not stop using them and all we can do is create a situation where there's much less reason for them to happen.

 

"wouldn't change anything" is factually wrong, it GUARANTEES there is no catch weights amongst fighters that were already in the same weight class. People need to stop saying it won't change anything.