I didn't know Hopkins had 3 catchweight fights.
Good info there Bilbo.
To be fair to Hopkins though, in all 3 occasions he was the guy having to cut down in weight to come to a fair CW.
I also thought that the Calzaghe fight had Warren put in a catchweight limit of like 173?
I think it's the guy who asks for the catchweight who should become the 'catchweight king'.
Anyway back to your original point, it's got to be Whitaker-Chavez, I've never had that closer than 10-2 when scoring it. It was a clinic.
More often than not the bigger guys wins though. It's actually quite rare for the smaller guy to win a catchweight fight, and when they do they were nearly always the big pre fight favourite in the first place. The rampant weight draining from catchweight fights that captures the imaginations of the Saddo critics has very rarely been witnessed in the ring.
Not exactly how it works.
Let's break down some catchweight fights
Ray Leonard vs Donny Lalonde @ 168 - smaller guy won
Arturo Gatti vs Micky Ward I, II, III @ 142 - smaller guy 2 bigger guy 1
Oscar De La Hoya vs Bernard Hopkins @ 157 - bigger guy
Bernard Hopkins vs Winky Wright @ 170 - bigger guy
Oscar De La Hoya vs Steve Forbes - bigger guy
Joe Calzaghe vs Bernard Hopkins - smaller guy
Bernard Hopkins vs Kelly Pavlik - bigger guy
Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto - smaller guy
Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito - smaller guy
So if we count the Gatti-Ward trilogy as a single win for smaller it's 5-4 in the end of the smaller guy. Does that mean they were weight drained. No, not in my opinion.
In all those cases, with the possible exceptions of Calzaghe/Hopkins & Gatti/Ward I, the guy who I think we would all say is the better, more talented boxer won. I think that's what it's really about. I don't agree with draining opponents, because if you'd ever boxed you'd understand every pound when making a weight limit is a pain in the arse, but I don't think that's why they lost those fights. The one exception there maybe being SRL/Lalonde because he had to drop 7lbs which is way too much.
That's exactly what I meant. I can't think of any big catchweight upsets where the bigger guy was the favourite and lost due to being weight drained. If you look at your list in the light of that Manny's catchweight wins look very very impressive imo they clearly go against the historical grain. Can you think of any much much smaller fighters who have catchweights like he has? I'm scratching my head.
Calzaghe was a big favourite over Hopkins too. Weight had nothing whastsoever to do with it. Now age on the other hand....
Like I said, the only one where I think weight played a part in the outcome was the SRL/Lalonde fight. Perhaps the ODLH/Forbes fight as well, as Oscar looked really listless & out of it & I thought it was much closer than the final scorecards against an opponent he should have boxed rings round. I don't think any of the others would have changed much given that extra couple of pounds. I certainly don't think the Pacquiao fights would have.
LMAO
Why do you think in all of those catch weight fights no one lost due to being drained??
IT BECAUSE NEITHER FIGHTER WHO ASKED FOR THE CATCH WEIGHT DID IT FOR ADVANTAGEOUS REASONS.
They did it as a median, not to have as many advantages over the other fighter, or take hope that fighter won't be at there best.
Based on the fights i have seen, my vote goes to Funeka/Guzman 1.
Funeka beat his ass clearly, but the judges seen otherwise.![]()
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks