BANGKOK, Thailand — “Weight is the most dangerous opponent of every single fighter in the world,” said Mauricio Sulaiman, the president of the WBC and one of the most influential figures in boxing.
The issue of fighters making weight, both safely and fairly, is a source of increasing contention. Conversations are underway this week at the WBC Convention with several doctors hoping for a change to the current guidelines which stipulate that at least 24 hours must have elapsed between the weigh-in and the contest. Historically, boxers would take to the scales only hours before they entered the ring until the WBC made a huge change in the 1980s when they introduced day-before weigh-ins which soon became standard across the sport. The WBC’s reasoning was simple: The rigors of making weight left boxers depleted to the extent that the chances of serious injury were greater and thus, with an extra day to replenish their bodies, that risk would alleviate.
Sulaiman, whose father was behind that switch, today told BoxingScene: “We rely on the medical committee, the medical evaluations, and the research. I believe that, overall, the weigh-in on the day before is the greatest measurement for safety because a fighter can get a nice sleep, rehydrate, and compete the following day as a human being and not as a ghost.”
Yet several doctors and commissioners affiliated with the WBC are starting to doubt the rehydration that Sulaiman speaks of is possible. After all, we have seen as many ghosts in the ring in recent years as those who managed to replenish to gain an advantage. Neither scenario is ideal.
“Every fighter wants to be the weight below [where they should be] because they believe they will be stronger,” said the British Boxing Board of Control’s Robert Smith. “But even though they are heavier the next day, they are not stronger than they would have been had they not lost so much weight in the first place.”
Dr Neil Scott, the chief medical officer in the UK who has become a trusted figure behind the scenes at some of the sport’s biggest events, agrees. “It’s essentially counterproductive to make weight,” he said. “A fighter will push themselves to extreme levels of dehydration knowing that they have at least 24 hours to recover. They might then have one or two decent meals and lots of fluid. But that fluid cannot get to where it needs to be for true rehydration to occur.”
Check weights have been introduced to counteract the effects of this process with championship-level boxers now needing to prove they are dropping weight steadily and not quickly. The WBC’s current guidelines advise that a boxer should not be any more than 10 per cent over the division limit within 30 days of the bout, five per cent within 14 days and three per cent within seven. In an effort to combat rejuvenating too much, the IBF won’t allow an increase of more than 10 pounds from the weigh-in to the morning of the fight. In Britain, inspectors are regularly sent out to training camps to monitor the weights during the cutting process to discourage a last-minute crash. However, though the intentions of these processes are understood, Scott suggested the implementation of extra limitations can lead to boxers “cutting weight three-to-four times” in a short space of time and further affect the body’s ability to recover.
“Check weights have a role,” Scott admitted. “But in reality, it’s difficult to ascertain how useful they really are because boxers are essentially being encouraged to cut weight for each check weight.”
Scott, and Smith, are far from alone. Manager and trainer Joe Gallagher, who has taken boxers from four-round level to world championships, has long been an advocate of restoring the weigh-in back to the day of the contest and regards check weights as a dangerous hindrance.
“What the boxer will do, when they know there’s a Board inspector coming on a certain day, they’ll crash the weight to make it,” Gallagher explained to BoxingScene. “Or in the case of the IBF, they’ll go and do a training session in the morning to make that [10-pound rehydration] weight on the day of the fight. It’s just obscene. It’s been drilled into them that we can strip their weight right down and then fill them back up, again and again. It’s no good for you whatsoever.”
Gallagher was quick to point out how frequently boxers miss weight these days. Often the fighter is blamed for poor preparation when the truth can be they’ve been left with too much mass to shift.
“Maybe it just wasn’t documented that much in the past but I don’t recall fighters failing to make weight [so often] back then,” Gallagher reasoned. “Certainly, nowhere near as frequently as they do today. I feel by making them weigh in on the day of the fight again, fighters will compete at their truer weights… We hear all these rehydration clauses. Why do we have that? There was never any need for that in the past.”
California’s Dr Paul Wallace, whose influence is keenly felt within the WBC, was realistic about the chances of an immediate procedural change occurring but made his opinion on the current system clear. “We have to further the education that it’s not good to have these major weight shifts and it doesn’t give you a distinct advantage to do so,” he said. “There is a good argument that, in any other walk of life, we would say, ‘No, don’t do that.’ Yet you choose to do this at a time of the biggest fight of your life? Something that will earn you the most money and change your life forever and you choose to do it like this? All we hear is, ‘Just let them rehydrate tomorrow.’
“I believe that fairness has to do with the reason why we have weight divisions. When you try to fool the system, or make a fool out of the system, by cutting all this weight, and then tomorrow jump, not one, but two weight categories, and then fight. I think that’s unfair. I think it’s unsafe.”
Wallace suggested that referees should be warned if it’s clear that one fighter has made weight unsafely so they can react accordingly in a hard fight: “There is something chemically wrong with that person even though they can perform at a high level,” he explained. “But the referee doesn’t know what the body shift was.”
Regardless, when the situation is spelt out, it seems ludicrous to expect the same body that was starved to the point of exhaustion on Friday then be amid a gruelling fight on Saturday.
“In training camp, would you ever tell your fighter to lose 10 pounds in the gym today and tomorrow we’ve got to do a 12-round spar?” asked Gallagher. “No. It never happens. Why doesn’t it happen? Because their body would still be in trauma and shock from losing that weight. After the weigh-in, we’re like, ‘Let’s fix it and throw [food and water] into us.’ But it’s too much, the body can’t process that in 24 hours when it’s gone so long without it.
“I feel like the sport would be a lot safer if they returned to same-day weigh-ins because fighters are absolutely killing themselves to make stupid weights. I say they’re burning the pan too much. No matter what you then do, you’re not going to get that back. You’re shot. You can’t get the water back to the brain, it’s not healthy.”
Sulaiman has since promised to look again at the evidence. “The beauty of the WBC is the open discussions in which everyone has their say,” he said. “We analyse all evidence, and we are not set on anything. We rely on the medical committee for their recommendations, and they are then put to the board. Sometimes we do pilot tests to try them out. We will see.”
“I hope Mauricio does look at it,” concluded Gallagher. “You will get fighters back in their natural weight classes. There will be no need or desire to put all that weight back on. Then you will see fighters with more energy because they’ve not killed themselves the day before making weight.”