Just how much did Jeff Fenech struggle to make bantamweight? I'm well into his career set and have seen a good dozen of his bantamweight fights which go a long distance, which him constantly breaking his opponents down and eventually hurting them. True he hurt some early on but they tended to recover and be finished later on. 3 fights into Super Bantamweight and he shows much greater power, smashing through the champion and Greg Richardson easily. He also hurt Zarate early on. How much did he struggle to make Bantamweight?
I must chime in: when Fenech took the 122lb title from Payakaroon, the Thai struggled immensely to make the weight. Hence why he looked so helpless.
I know that when Fenech defended his FW title against Tyrone Downes, he weighed in at 125 for the weigh in, and then by fight time he was probably a whopping 135 or even 140.
Fenech struggled badly to make 118 but I think his promoter wanted to keep him at bantam because of the title ($$$). His body was screaming to go straight to 126 but instead he stopped at 122 for 18 months or so until that also became too difficult Hi trainer wanted to pull put of the McCrory fight due to the state of him when trying to get the weight off. I've read that a day or so before he fight Fenech was still over the limit (can't remember how much over but it was quite an amount). The day before the fight his trainer wanted him to pull out but Fenech wouldn't have it. In that fight he was hurt for the first time that I'd seen. About the eighth round a right hand had him going backwards although he recovered and got his second wind a few rounds later and overwhelmed McCrory. Had it been a big puncher instead of McCrory it may have been all over for Fenech
