The myth of Canelo being "weighed drained" against Mayweather and other excuses debunked

Mayweather refused to fight him at 154-lb like he did Cotto. He needed A-side advantages to weaken Canelo in order to fight him. There's no defending those tactics by Mayweather and it creates an asterisk on the victory because for two reigning 154-lb Champions in a Unification at 154-lb to fight at a catchweight is utterly absurd. It would like if Castaño fought Charlo at a 152-lbs catchweight even though both were 154-lb champs. It would never happen. Only Mayweather was able to get away with something like that, and we need to call that out for what it was. A cowardly attempt to gain an advantage. There's no use defending Mayweather here, as you have seen from the responses no one's buying your argument. It was not a legitimate victory. But Canelo as a young kid wanted to do anything to get Mayweather in the ring, and he was willing to sacrifice himself to make it happen. It wasn't smart to do that, and DLH warned him about it, but it worked out because that fight even in a losing effort made Canelo into a household name and it catapulted him to Super Stardom.

The green is just code for weight drained. He looked more green because he was weight drained. Now granted, Canelo was "green" when it came to negotiating with Mayweather. He was green in the sense that he didn't insist that it be at 154-lb, and he learned a hard lesson from that. He was also "green" in terms of how old he was, he was "green" at Main Eventing Pay Per Views. But as far as overall experience he had plenty of it. But even with all the fights he had, he was still somewhat green in the sense that he was still developing as a fighter. Every fighter peaks at different times. Some fighters peak in their early or mid-20s. Canelo kept developing into his 30s. And in retrospect, given what Canelo has become, that was a very limited version who fought Mayweather. Both in terms of his development as a fighter and in terms of being weight drained.

 

The Catchweight clearly drained Canelo. Canelo was bone dry and a skeleton at the weigh-in. You'd have to be blind not to see that he was weight drained. Of course he rehydrated a lot after the weigh-in because he probably had to starve himself for days to make that weight.

 

Canelo proposed it to make the fight.

Floyd enforced it, which he didn’t need to.

 

Not quite. What happened was 2 years before, in 2011, Canelo was asked in an interview if he was interested in fighting Mayweather. That was before Mayweather moved up to 154-lb to fight Cotto, so at that point he was fighting exclusively at 147.

A catchweight was mentioned in the question, but Canelo did not specifically address the catchweight, he merely said Yes he was interested in fighting Mayweather. That was re-translated into Canelo wanting a catchweight. That was never what he said or what he requested. His desire to fight Mayweather back in 2011 was spun 2 years later by Mayweather and his team into Canelo proposing a catchweight.

 

Mayweather was trying to get Canelo to drain himself as low as possible. First 147, then 150, Canelo kept saying no I can't do that. Mayweather refused to agree to 154, so Canelo finally caved in and said OK I'll agree to 152. It was never Canelo's idea. His 2011 interview was twisted through poor translation into him wanting a catchweight. The whole thing was BS from Mayweather in an attempt to weaken Canelo then lie to the public making it seem like it was Canelo's idea.

 

No.

Stop giving him a pass.

Canelo proposed it because Floyd wouldn’t take the fight at the limit.

Canelo had to propose it in order to make the fight, and then Ellerbe jumped onto it and stuck to it like glue.

You cannot defend his actions when he’d just fought Cotto at 154 and that belt was on the line.

 

He did the best he could to make 152-lbs as safely as possible, but it was clearly a struggle for him. Look at his condition at the weigh-in. Then he rehydrated. You're acting like rehydrating after the weigh-in proves that he didn't struggle to make weight. That's nonsensical.

 

Floyd fought Oscar 6 years prior at 154