By Cliff Rold (photo by Javiel Centeno/FightWireImages)
This was supposed to be the standard report card for the latest big title fight in the fight game. A problem came up along the way.
After Friday’s weigh-in, it’s only half a title fight.
Following Lightweight Nate Campbell’s upset, career defining win over Juan Diaz in 2008, the three and then later two-belted titlist made the most of the spotlight outside the ring. He penned some op-eds; he talked some smack. But, due in part to Joan Guzman missing weight last September, he never got back in the ring.
Clearly the layoff did not suit him.
Stepping on the scale in anticipated defense of his WBO and IBF baubles against IBF mandatory Ali Funeka (30-1-2, 25 KO), Campbell 32-5-1, 35 KO) weighed in first three and then two and half pounds over the 135 lb. limit. As has become custom, his belts are forfeit no matter what he achieves on Saturday night.
Funeka will have the opportunity to claim them.
The show will go on.
What Campbell will weigh at fight time, and Funeka for that matter, remains to be seen. Neither will likely be at or even within a few pounds of 135. As followers of the sweet science know, missing weight is not the same as being out of shape. Campbell looked cut and ready in photos from the scale and may well be in top shape, with even more extra pounds, on Saturday.
It presents the sport its latest example of the inanity of the day before weigh-in. When will enough be enough?
Beginning in the 1980s, for safety reasons of course, the decision was made to allow day before weigh-ins for fights. The safety theory was that fighters would be healthier at fight time if they had an extra day to rehydrate. There weren’t any well-known, per reviewed medical studies leading to the decision of course.
There was arguably a profit incentive.
Chatting tonight with historian Steve Gordon at the Cyber Boxing Zone, Gordon recalled the catalyst for the change being an early 1980s cancelled rematch between Michael Spinks and Eddie Mustapha Muhammad. Highly hyped and looked forward to, Muhammad failed on the day of the fight to make weight. Spinks refused to go with the show. Lots of folks lost cash.
Since the shift to day before weigh-ins, we’ve seen excellent examples of safety. We’ve seen Arturo Gatti nearly decapitate Joey Gamache; we’ve seen “Lightweight” champions step in the ring as Jr. Middleweights; we’ve seen Jorge Arce sometimes fighting Flyweight fights with featherweight pounds.
The sport has also seen a lost connection to history. How does a fighter like Castillo stack up with a Roberto Duran at Lightweight? While the answer is probably obvious, the reality is that in the ring the men didn’t even fight in the same weight class.
And the day before weigh-in obscures the idea that fighters should be in shape in their weight class to compete there.
Gordon added another story in our conversation. He cited the famous second bout between Nino Benvenuti and Emile Griffith, a Shea stadium show. Delayed a day because of rain, the fighters were forced to weigh-in two days in a row.
They made weight both times then went out and put on a hell of a show. They showed in shape and in a division where they physically belonged.
This is not to say Boxing was safer in the days of the same-day weigh-in. It wasn’t and for a simple reason.
Boxing isn’t safe and no matter the rules, someone will try to bend them and their body into a class which isn’t best for their long term health.
However, it’s impossible to argue any good is done by allowing men to walk in the ring three and four divisions out of the alleged weight class of a given bout. When one fighter comes in naturally at the limit, and the other blows up, the danger logically increases over where it once might have been. The net result is an inducement for more fighters than to cut even more weight to try to gain similar advantage. Campbell may or may not carry significant excess weight against Funeka, probably won’t, but it’s indicative of a larger problem.
In bouts like this one, the marred Jose Luis Castillo-Diego Corrales rivalry, and even Campbell’s cancelled fight with Joan Guzman last fall, fans see evidence that the number one thing a day before weigh-in is supposed to prevent still happens.
Fighters, sometimes, still miss weight.
And if a fighter like Campbell couldn’t make weight a day out, it suggests he probably isn’t a Lightweight anymore anyways.
Fight fans have accepted many of the changes which have come with time. Multiple world champions…no more fifteen round fights…heck, no more 20 round fights.
They shouldn’t have to accept this anymore.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
