How was it with weight cutting in the past?

same day was the normal until very recently years
yes right before the fight . it make most sense

what is point anyway of weight class if everyone is actual cruiser or the heavyweight?
LOL

ruins the sport to have 147 pound title contest between 175 pound boxers! very stupid

right before fight is only way forward
or simply abolish weight class & weight stipulation in contract. which seems stupid too. but make sense

 

exactly. hydration is easily tested.

 

I'd put money on Hearns doing this when younger. I'm convinced the only way he was making 147 was that he was able to fight while severely dehydrated.

 

Weigh-ins were the day of the fight, often as the boxers entered the arena hours before the fight. That changed in the late 80s/early 90s. That's when they moved weigh-ins back.

That's also when the number of fighters holding titles in multiple weight classes exploded.

When Wilfred Benitez fought Maurice Hope on May 23, 1981, and Alexis Arguello fought Jim Watt a month later in June 1981, Benitez and Arguello became, I believe, only the fifth and sixth men to hold titles in THREE divisions ... in all of boxing ... ever, to that point.

NOBODY had won titles in four divisions. Let alone five or six.

That's because, at that time, you had to get in the ring and fight at the actual weight you weighed in at.

When Leonard fought Duran the first time, Leonard said he lost 10 pounds during the 15-rounder. So, when you saw Leonard at the end of the fight, he actually physically weighed in the high 130s, as opposed to 147.

So when you see guys like Devin Haney fight for a lightweight title and he weighs in at 135 and weighs in the high 140s when the bell rings, you're not actually watching a lightweight fight. You're watching a welterweight fight.

If Haney fought in Leonard's era, Haney would just be a welterweight. Because that's what he weighs when he fights.

IT's all ass-backwards and has made comparing fighters in the lighter weight classes from different eras nearly impossible, IMO.

We should be comparing guys like Errol Spence and Crawford with Hagler, not other welterweights from the past. Because they weigh somewhere in the 150s when they fight ... they don't enter the ring below 147 ... and Hagler actually weighed in for middleweight title defenses 157 the DAY OF his fights. Ray Robinson fought Middleweight title fights weighing in the low 150s the day of the fight.

Who was the last middleweight who weighed in the low to mid 150s the day of the fight? Most middleweights today are in the 170s when the bell rings.

Most champs in the ligher weight divisions couldn't actually enter the ring and fight at the weight where they are supposedly champion.

I think when Canelo fought Kovalev, he put in the contract Kovalev couldn't weigh more than 175 when they fought.

And Kovalev fans went insane, like HOW could you make a light heavyweight champion actually weigh 175 for a 175-pound title fight?

Kovalev fans thought he was being cheated somehow, for actually having to defend the 175-pound title weighing 175 pounds ... you know, like every light heavyweight champion in history did prior to the 1990s.

It's madness.

 

Hearns weighed 145 pounds when he weighed in the day of the fight with Leonard in 1981. And Hearns glared at Emanuel Steward from the scale, it was reported.

Steward later said he, as the trainer, had screwed up having Hearns lose so much and it impacted Hearns in the later rounds, when he basically just crumbled.

If you watch training videos of Hearns preparing for that fight, he looks really filled out. When you see him enter the ring, he looks almost skeletal. Three months later, Hearns fought as a middleweight against Ernie Singletary and looked totally in shape.

 

Jim Jeffries lost like 100 lbs in less than a year to come out and fight Johnson. He had to starve himself I would imagine

 

I think he was probably always a MW in those days and just happened to be able to fight effectively while dehydrated and cut down.

edit: and his power stayed while dehydrated and cut down. That's the thing that would make it worth it.

 

From the best quality images we do have, Jeffries looked great. Very muscular, lean, fit. I don't think he really had to lose 100lbs in a year. Maybe it was 100lbs from when he was first approached about it.

Or maybe he did some nutso thing like eating 500 calories a day for 3 months to drop crazy weight and then build himself back up, not knowing how long term damaging that is.

 

Honestly, screw that "below his natural body composition" garbage. If you want to be the 175-pound champion, you should be able to enter the ring weighing 175 and win.

Having grown up watching boxers who actually weighed in the day of fights and fought within the weight limits of the divisions they supposedly were champs of ... I have no sympathy for boxers who are weight bullies.

If you were a middleweight, you entered the ring between 155 and 160 and you fought.

They aren't even weight DIVISIONS in the lower weight classes any more ... they are weight "targets."

Nobody's weighing 156 because they trained hard and that's what they weigh. They say "I'll dry out to weigh 160 for the five seconds on the scale and then I'll rehydrate back up to 170 for the fight."

There are no divisions anymore. Nobody is defending his title in the lower-end of the division weight limit. Nobody is weighing 132 for a lightweight title defense and entering the ring below 135.

Just make the highest maximum target weight for a few seconds and load up again.

It's a completely failed experiment.