Comments Thread For: Canelo's Trainer To Golovkin: Come To 155, We'll Fight!

[The Big Dunn]

I´m not OnePunch, but here´s a thought: there never should have been even one unification at a CW (except for cruisers, pun intended). Divisions from 175 down are a sloppy fart apart, just f****** pick one and fight. Canelo is making a joke of himself if he sticks with his Canelo Weight nonsense.

I agree with you 100%. No CW for any title fight. It is bogus and unfair to the challenger.

That said, this is boxing and we know how it works. Its wrong and should be eliminated but likely will not be, especially in this situation.

[Bardock]

Most people don't know that back in the day, champions did this all the time in the late 1800s and the turn of the century

Middleweight was more like 154-156 at the champions discretion where the weight was

Featherweight was closer to 118

lightheavyweight didn't exist so middleweights fought heavies regularly


its amazing how people act like catchweight fights are a new trend. They have been around over 100 years in boxing.

Here is an article I found on catchweights

“Catchweight” or “contract weight” fights of course began long before Sully penned his challenges to his peers of the day, but to hear today’s typical boxing fan on a rant, catchweights are killing boxing when extra title belts and promoters ain’t killing boxing.

“If we could just get back to one belt and only the best fighting the best when men were men and on and on, over and over,” and so it goes on life’s wonderful merry-go-round.

Well, to be clear, the average fight fan is a rather unstudied lot, but then boxing as a business does little to educate the public as to the history of the sport, so in context, it is as it always was and forever shall be.

Promoters of course love catchweights for expanding the pool of prospective matchups that can be made and fighters themselves often jump when a lucrative opportunity presents itself, so let’s take a look at some of the bigger “catchweight” fights.

Kid Lavigne@131.5 vs Joe Walcott@131.5

Staged December 2nd, 1895 in Queens, New York, Barbados Joe Walcott was a squat, blocky welterweight in need of a big fight, so enter the manager of undefeated The Saginaw Kid Lavigne with a catchweight offer at 15 rounds, won by Lavigne by way of another stipulation of lasting the distance. Walcott’s manager put all his money in Walcott knocking out Lavigne. Keep in mind that the welter and lightweight limits were less by a few pounds than they are today and Walcott was coming off an open bout needing no weight limit and was at 138 lbs for that bout. They staged the rematch 2 yrs later with the Kid doing the honors, knocking out Barbados Joe who weighed 135 lbs for this bout.

Joe Gans@131 vs Battling Nelson@131lbs
Nelson vs Gans
Nelson vs Gans

This was Tex Rickard’s first big fight that established him as one of the greatest promoters ever, and what a dandy it was. Staged September 3rd, 1906 in the Nevada gold mining town of Goldfield, Rickard showcased the $33,000 purse as gold coins in the local bank’s store window, attracting the sporting crowds from all corners of the country.

Joe Gans was incrementally the bigger man, so Battling Nelson wouldn’t fight him without a weight stipulation of 131 lbs, being such a stickler that his camp insisted on weighing Gans at ringside just before the first bell. After 42 rounds of give and take action, Nelson had taken enough of a beating, delivering a blow so low and obvious that he was disqualified. Now I see Boxrec has “edited” the weights again along with the purse, so now the account of the fight is in disagreement with their record, but such are the always moving goalposts of boxing history. The point remains, Gans/Nelson fight is always reported as a catchweight fight.

Harry Lewis@149 vs Johnny Summers@141

Lewis vs Summers
Lewis vs Summers

Harry Lewis is an undersung fighter who held a portion of the welterweight title after the turn of the century. Staged January 25th, 1911 in London, England, the contracted weight was 144 lbs. Lewis was well over and paid a forfeit before knocking out Summers in the 4th round. He then announced he was moving up to middleweight where he finished his career. Fight conditions were very similar to the Mayweather/Marquez bout.

Henry Armstrong@142 vs Ceferino Garcia@153½

The Battle

Staged March 1st, 1940, this is a storied bout touted as Armstrong’s attempt to claim his 4th belt, but the truth of the matter is that only the state of California appeared to recognize the title, which, surprise, was split to smithereens! I see no indication it was reported as a catchweight fight, but I included it because in essence the conditions were near mirror image of the Pacquiao/Margarito fight.

Armstrong was well below the welter limit as was Pacquiao, and lifelong welterweight Garcia well below the middle limit, as was the Margarito career and weight. Some important differences are that Garcia did actually hold a portion of the middle title as recognized by the NYASC by beating Fred Apostoli, but the California fight was only for 10 rds, Another difference is the era with fighters like Margarito enhanced by modern weigh-in rules that give them as much as 36 hours to replenish fluids and nutrients before the fight. Margarito weighed a reported 167lbs in the ring, dwarfing Armstrong, Pacquiao, Garcia and most pre 90s middleweights in size.

Sugar Ray Leonard@165 vs Donny Lalonde@167

Staged at Ceasars PalaceNovember 7th in Las Vegas, Nevada, this fight had all the media hype of a typical Leonard fight plus much more thanks to creative manipulations by the WBC that allowed Leonard to challenge for both the supermiddleweight and LaLonde’s lightheavy title simultaneously in spite of neither making the LH limit. The well drained LaLonde was coming on strong, on the verge of knocking out Leonard before visibly running out of steam and being flattened in the 9th round. It was a good scrap, but emblematic of the extremes of what “catchweight” fights can go to. LaLonde was never the same after this, campaigning at cruiserweight to finish out his career.

Oscar De La Hoya@155 vs Bernard Hopkins@156

Staged September 18th, 2004 at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada, the catchweight was actually at 158lbs, but Hopkins, having given up near every concession to the Goldenboy of boxing, got in his first shot early on by scaling in 2lbs below the contracted weight. He got in the last shot as well, flooring the surprisingly competitive De La Hoya with a left hook to the liver that kept him down for the 10 count in the 9th round.

Pretty much similar to the history of the thousands of catchweight fights in that there was seldom any controversy over the catchweight. That is until that modern subspecies, The Shiny Crusted **** Petardis, started streaming(screaming) into cyberspace.

So now with promoters aware that even a minor controversy sells, it looks like catchweights will be proliferating for better or worse into the foreseeable future of boxing.

Good post

[OnePunch]

That's a complete lie. I said I knew of no instance where there was only 1 lb. didn't you see that?

I then pointed out it would be a unification bout, not a mando defense since GGG is the WBA super champ. I then pointed out the 3 times I knew of CW's in a unification fight.

You still are avoiding answering why GGG shouldn't face the similar obstacles other fighters have faced.

Im not avoiding anything. The word "obstacle" is subjective. You can claim its not a "mandatory" all you want, but in fact it is. All the other examples you point to are voluntary fights, where guys made decisions to do something or not based on only the money. Fine, if a guy wants to ********** himself for a few bucks in an optional fight, who cares? Certainly not me. But is being a mandatory challenger officially now lost all its meaning? Is everything just a popularity contest? Boxing has always been full of ****, but at least mandos sometimes could straighten things out. Sure, sometimes they are garbage (Hopkins-Hakkar for example), but the mando was always the avenue for the lesser known fighters to even the playing field a bit. Now even mandos it seems are turning into glorified auctions.

Bottom line, if GGG feels he can make the concession to 155 and stil be effective, thats his choice. I just find it pathetic that its even on the table. And what makes it even worse is people cheering it, simply because the fighter in question is a bit lighter than they prefer.

And you can pretend that doesnt factor in, but who are you trying to kid?

[Boxing23]

Canelo is the A-side over 900k maybe 1 million and GGG barely over 100k . So dumb ****s that means he can do whatever the **** he wants ! GGG should move up And fight Ward . Ohh wait GGG fans want remember that .

[Aztekkas]

this is hilarious.

Canelo fans GGG fans

[Bardock]

I remember Abel referencing Ward's comment about dropping to 160 to fight Floyd.....to justify the 164 cw they were trying to negotiate through the pipeline....NOW lets see him reference is OWN comment about being able to make 154 for a fight against Floyd ....you can't make this **** up lol

Doesn't seem like Team Nelo is budging....can't wait to hear what Loeffler counter with....this is gonna be good lol

^^This. GGG fanboys act like they wanted to fight Froch but not for his titles at 168. Then they act like they weren't going to try and fight Ward for his titles at 164 or Floyd for his titles at 154

[texasboi15]

Dunn, how old are you? Sometimes your posts are so childish... excuse me...

Hey MCPepsico I'm waiting you clown fck

[Fetta]

Just came in to say...YUP!

Family about to arrive so Happy Thanksgiving boys/girls. Be safe.

[Bardock]

The floyd fight would have given him about 10-20 millions at least. Will the fight against Canelo give hiim that?

Also, if GGG lost to floyd at 154, it wouldn't mean anything to his legacy since people knows that he's a 160 fighter and he would still remain the MW champion.

But if he loses against Canelo at 155 he loses all his MW titles and loses recognition.

So no, the situation is not the same.

Floyd would have fcked GGG at the table. He would have made 1-2 million tops and made him weigh in at 154

[QballLobo]

This fight aint happening. Listening to Abel Sanchez the night before the fight he said if the winner doesn't want to fight at 160 they can give up the belt and GGG will move onto his next fight. They have 11 days left to decide. I don't think GGG and team are moving from that position. Cotto and Canelo have made a mockery of the WBC MW title and the WBC has allowed them to do so.

I don't think so. GGG may want the belt, but at this point in his career he wants a big payday even more. He wanted Floyd, Ward, Cotto, and now Canelo in a big PPV fight.
He can go down to 155 and get paid or let Canelo vacate and get paid a 10th of what a Canelo fight would bring and have to pay sanctioning fee's going forward.
And I don't think the WBC would prefer GGG as their champ than Canlelo. They are out to get paid.