Is a 5lbs weight advantage a big gap?

After middleweight, it would stop being a MAJOR difference.

Obviously down at the lower weights 5lbs is a huge difference.

I'd assume Donaire must have 5lbs or more on most of his opponents in the ring.

 

Only below 135, the room for rehydration gets smaller at lower weights so can't really exploit as easily.

There are examples like Broner when he competed at 130 was gaining 20 pounds which is much more than usual for these smaller guys (10-12lbs is normal) add that he was fighting the small men at that weight.

Add that he was in his early 20's, younger guys tends to get away with being naturally bigger and make the cut easier.

 

It isn't a big deal at all.

Take a strawweight. He weighs in at 105 pounds. Roughly 10 percent of his body weight is 10.5 pounds. So five pounds is about five percent of his total weight.

5 percent.

Take a heavyweight who weighs 220 pounds. Roughly 10 percent of his body weight is 22 pounds. 11 pounds would be 5 percent.

If a 220-pound heavyweight fought a 231-pound heavyweight, would anyone consider that a huge disadvantage? No.

That's why it is ludicrous to have so many divisions within three to five pounds of each other in the lower weight divisions.

It would be like having a division every 7 to 10 pounds from 200 on up.

It's one reason I find it comical that some fighters brag about being a three-division champ when they haven't even gone up 10 pounds.

It would be like having a champ at 210. 216. 224. 230. 236. 244. 252. 260. 270. And Wilder was a six or seven division champion.

 

You would assume wrong. Montiel weighed more than he did.

 

Is 3 a big number?

 

Some will complain the extra weight gives one the strength advantage and some will say it gives one the speed disadvantage.

 

That fight was a decade ago.

Donaire has fought as fight as 130 since then.

 

I’d say it’s more size that matters. Where’s that weight coming from.

 

Another big thing to factor in is skill level. 5, 10lbs will make no difference if the skill level difference is significant. These questions need to be framed as relative (weight class) and all things being equal (skill/experience/style).

 

For Flyweights....maybe. For HW's and most. No.

 

It is X% more weight than the other fighter.

The lower the weight limit, the higher %.

Being that the difference between junior middleweight and middleweight is 6 pounds, yeah, 5 pounds is very relevant.

Overall relevance to an individual outcome is impossible to gauge and is a case by case basis on how much is replacing water weight and how much you dehydrated to make the weight in the first place. Height, body frame, etc.

But I am guessing, and I dont think anyone will disagree with this one, that in matches where one boxer outweighed the other by 5 pounds, the heavier fighter won more often (once again further magnified the lower you go).

 

Anything under 130 I'd say it's a potential significant one.