Why are fighters not called out for fighting in divisions there clearly to big for

if you can make the weight class the day before the fight when it's time to weigh in then you're fine. As long as you don't cheat to make weight and your performance isn't overly affected in a negative way.

If Chavez Jr wants to cut weight and gain 20 pounds over night to gain an advantage in size, then that's on him.

 

Give me some examples.

Perfectly stated.

Now if Celestino Caballero couldn't get any fights back in the day because nobody wanted to fight a 5 foot 11 inch in the featherweight division, then that is also up to Caballero... If he wanted to move up to entice better/bigger fights he could have. But if he wanted to stay at featherweight and could make the weight most healthy there, then obviously that is the right thing to do... I actually thought back then he should have moved up a division or two to get fights of bigger notoriety but the moment he did against Jason Litzau at 130, he got beat up.

 

I had people who actually consider Donaire in that category, that he squeezed himself to make 112 and fight at flyweight. :-(

 

:yep yeah, you have to do what's best for your career as long as it's legal of course. I remember that Litzau fight too. Cabellero just got bullied :!:

 

I agree. Dimensions say he could have been able to move up a couple divisions with similar success over the coarse of a career.

But Donaire was a legit Fly who has gone out of his way to fight in higher divisions at earlier points in his career than he should have, in my opinion. The nature of his physique and build always have indicated this. I'm amazed how fast and how well he moved up in weight. As much as people hate to give him credit for it, he is one of only 13 fighters to ever win titles in 4 divisions, so perhaps his accomplishments have actually done a little to prove you and I less correct than we might think.

 

I think people turn a blind eye to it the way they do all the PEDs. They see it as just another aspect of competitive gamesmanship and fighters looking for advantages. There have always been guys who were ridiculously tall and long limbed for their weight classes like Tommy Hearns, Alexis Arguello, Paul Williams, Michael Spinks, Bob Foster, Ray Robinson. Some manage to stay light for their size and fight most of their career at weights designed for naturally smaller fighters, but then a lot of them have trouble keeping the weight down which leads to weight climbing until they are in the right division for their measurements.

Then you have the other type of weight cheats who can only get their weight down for a day or two before re-hydrating and bulking back up overnight, so on fight night they weigh 15-20 pounds more than their opponents. That's bull**** too, but even more common.

The problem is that as long as there are weight classes people will exploit them somehow. If we divided the divisions by height and reach measurements, they'd all have roughly the same bone structure but guys would put on twenty or forty pounds of muscle to have advantages that way. There's really no fair way to make things an even contest. We just have to hope that everyone cheats a little and it evens itself out.

 

If they can make the weight I dont see the problem.

Its only when fighters are unpopular, that people find issue with this.

When the fighter is popular(or fighting an unpopular fighter), they're no longer "too big" for the weight. Instead, they're "drained"

 

There shouldn't be more than five weight classes in boxing anyways

 

unfair advantage. they should have fight day weigh ins

 

Sometimes people say its an advantage...sometimes people say its a disadvantage becausen they're drained.

Its the same rules for everyone.

 

In the odd fight it does but as long as they are not breaking the rules then its up to the fighter what they do and being bigger in a fight is not always an advantage.

 

We have a amateur boxer in our gym who fights regularly at a slim 155. His older brother went to Oxnard a few years ago to train and box out of Robert Garcia's gym. Richard has trained there with his brother in the past and was asked by Garcia to move there and box for him. Which would have been fine but Garcia wants him to box at 135. That's just nuts. Richard is nearly 6 foot and weighs 155. Garcia does not have a natural lightweight and he wants to bring Richard down to that weight class. There in is the problem with trainers today.

 

This thread is a bust.

 

Well said. The part in bold above is the one that bugs me the most.

When a 168-lb James Toney gained 17-19 pounds overnight for the Jones fight, it was dayum near a scandal. Now you got a lightweight like Crawford coming into ring like that on the regular, and nobody blinks.