Making the weight = Boxing casualties... What needs to be changed?

[Martin (Top Knowledge)]

To those who are unsure of how fighters "make the weight" and what's involved with weight making I'll try to explain as best I can:

The BIG fight is scheduled for 10 weeks time - At this stage the fighter weighs approx 145lbs. With 8-10 weeks to go, the fighter will begin training. - With all the hard training along with a monitored diet, his weight naturally comes down and a week before the fight he's weighing approx 135lbs.

It's at this stage the "weight making games" begin... With a week to go before the fight he stops training and his concentration is focused on weight and mental strength.

The weigh-in is the day before the fight... The fighter stops eating 36hrs before the weigh-in.

The day of the weigh-in the fighter stops drinking and starts to dehydrate himself... He then puts on a sauna suit and begins to sweat out any excess fluid in his body... @3:00p.m. he steps on the scales naked and blips under 126lbs.

He's just made the featherweight limit.

After stepping off the scales he downs a bottle of water starts to eat steaks and all the food he can get his hands on!

And finally he enters the ring the next evening for the title fight weighing approx 135-140lbs.

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I've noticed that boxing fatalities with regards to brain tumors only ever seem to happen in the lower weight classes... And I think this is a direct result to weight making issues.

It's not healthy to dehydrate and starve yourself at any time... But it becomes extremely dangerous to put your body through this sort of deprivation the day before a World title fight.

So I ask... What would you guy's suggest to try and help the situation? What weight making rules would you introduce to stop fatalities happeneing?

[JUYJUY]

It's their own fault, seriously, it's fine as it is. If fighters have to 'dry out' to make the weight and suffer for it then that's their fault for not fighting in their proper weight-class (a heavier weight-class).

By the way, after the weigh-in it's not so much steaks/protein it's as many bowls of pasta/carbs as possible (you'll pass out during the fight without enough carbs beforehand, especially after starving yourself for days and/or 'drying out'), so mostly loads of pasta/rice after making the weight to 'fill out'.

[Martin (Top Knowledge)]

Or in Ricky Hatton's case... A FULL ENGLISH!!!... LOL!...

[JUYJUY]

Yeah Ricky says that after eating so strict for months, he desperately needs food that he craves before the fight to make him happy and make him feel better. Ricky also claims that it boosts his metabolism because he enjoys it so much, seems a good tactic actually.

[theironone]

I don't thinks its fine for fighters to put on 10+lb, i agree 100% though with juy that if they can't make the weight 'properly' as in healthily then they should go up a weight class or two.
If a fighter is 4 or 5 pounds above the limit the day before, which the majority of fighters are then thats **** out of order, they should fight in a more suitable weight class.
However with the current system the way it is nothing is going to change, maybe an idea is not allowing the boxers to come in heavier than the next weight class, example your 147class you weigh in 146-7 not allowed to come in higher than 153 come fight time, that would force alot of fighters up to a healthier weight class

[Martin (Top Knowledge)]

I don't thinks its fine for fighters to put on 10+lb, i agree 100% though with juy that if they can't make the weight 'properly' as in healthily then they should go up a weight class or two.
If a fighter is 4 or 5 pounds above the limit the day before, which the majority of fighters are then thats **** out of order, they should fight in a more suitable weight class.
However with the current system the way it is nothing is going to change, maybe an idea is not allowing the boxers to come in heavier than the next weight class, example your 147class you weigh in 146-7 not allowed to come in higher than 153 come fight time, that would force alot of fighters up to a healthier weight class

I do think that's a great idea in theory... However we may fall into an even more dangerous situation where fighters enter the ring weight drained.

Here's an idea - How about random weight testing, (the same as random drug testing), where if a fighter is found to be more than 15lbs above their current weight between fights, they are automatically banned from that weight class and are only allowed to keep their boxing license if they fight in a higher weight category?

It wouldn't be a very good system for our Ricky Boy, but it could be the way forward.

[theironone]

I know what your saying mart, no system is perfect.
Its such a shame all pro's aren't like mosly, jones, hopkins holy, lacy etc and stay in good shape in between fights, i think the only reasonable excuse for heavy weight gain is injury and a bad one at that, but then you can argue that if they are injured don't eat so ****in much ****!!!!

[Alpha Male]

Not a DAMN THANG!!!

[Living Legend]

Making the weight = Boxing casualties... What needs to be changed?

Not a DAMN THANG!!!

This is way off topic, but Alpha Male what movie is that scene from in your sig? that is the funniest thing I have ever seen...

[Round 1]

One of the weight making rules commissions are looking into is that the fighter cannot weight more than ten pounds over the scheduled weight limit at the begining of "fight week."
This a great idea but unfortunatelly does not apply to all fighters across the board as this rule does not apply to heavyweights.
Like George Foreman once said, "when you're a heavyweight, you eat what you eat and you weigh what you weigh."

In the old days the weigh-in used to be the day of the fight, that was changed to the day prior to the fight to give the fighter time to hydrate himself.