WBA/WBC middleweight champion Saul Canelo Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KOs) weighed in at 159.5 pounds on Friday for his unification fight against IBF champion Daniel Jacobs (35-2, 29 KOs) for their fight this Saturday night on DAZN at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jacobs weighed in at 160 lbs.
Aside from the actual weigh-in, there was the routine scuffle that took place between Canelo and Jacobs when the two went face to face for the stare down. The two fighters had to be separated, but the whole incident looked staged. Jacobs’ promoter Eddie Hearn was laughing, and the Golden Boy brass were all smiling during the scuffle. It all looked very fake indeed.
Jacobs looked upset after the scuffle. He didn’t like how Canelo put his head against him and then started leaning to try and make him fall over backwards. Jacobs, 32, says he’s going to make Canelo pay for his behavior when he gets him inside the ring tomorrow night.
“That motherf—- right there, he’s going to get it tomorrow. Watch that s—,” Jacobs said in motioning at Canelo.
Canelo took a different tact after the scuffle, acting as if he was innocent and played absolutely no part in it. In watching the scuffle in slow motion, it was pretty clear that Canelo started it by putting his head against Jacobs and leaning to the point where Jacobs was going to have to give ground. If Jacobs had fallen over and injured himself, it would have been bad news. He might have been out of the fight. Golden Boy would then need to find someone to replace Jacobs at the last minutes in order for Canelo to fight on Saturday. There would be no way to slide the co-feature fight between light welterweights Vergil Ortiz and Mauricio Herrera into the main event. That fight is a terrible mismatch in favor or Ortiz.
“I see fear. There was fear in what he did,” Canelo said giving his opinion that Jacobs could upset at him because he’s afraid. It looked more like Jacobs got upset because Canelo was trying to make him fall backwards.
The fighters still need to weigh-in tomorrow morning at 8:00 for the secondary weigh-in. That weigh-in has a limit of 170 lbs, and it was something that Golden Boy Promotions wanted. So instead of Canelo and Jacobs being able to go back to their hotel rooms to rehydrate fully tonight, they’ll have to limit their fluid intake and weight themselves frequently to make sure they don’t gain too much weight back before tomorrow morning. Jacobs says it’s a waste of time what Golden Boy Promotions is doing by having a rehyration clause, because he’ll be at 174 lbs tomorrow night. If he was in the 180s, then the rehydration would hurt him, but he’s going to be coming in a lot lower.
Official Weights:
Canelo Alvarez 159.5 vs. Daniel Jacobs 160
Vergil Ortiz Jr 147 vs. Mauricio Herrera 146.5
Joseph Diaz 129.5 vs. Freddy Fonseca 130
Lamont Roach 129.5 vs. Jonathan Oquendo 130
Sadam Ali 147 vs. Anthony Young 146
John Ryder 167.5 vs. Bilal Akkawy 167.5