WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) came into his last fight at junior middleweight weighing 172 lbs. for his fight with WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout last April.
That’s pretty heavy for a fighter that spends a lot of time fighting welterweights instead of junior middleweights. Canelo will now be fighting a welterweight in Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) on September 14th, and one of the questions about the fight is whether Canelo will come into the fight over 170 like he was for Trout or will Canelo try to come in lower in the 160s?
Canelo is probably too big for the junior middleweight division for him to come in any lower than 165 without draining himself in the process. If he believes that he’ll be quicker at 165, Canelo might possibly be able to take off enough weight to get down to 165.
Mayweather handled Miguel Cotto and Victor Ortiz when they both weighed in the mid-160s for fights against him, but Canelo is even bigger than those guys in the weight department.
If Canelo decides he wants to come in at his full weight, we could see Mayweather facing a 170 pounder on September 14th and then it’ll be a test of how Mayweather deals with the weight more than the fighter. This is what this fight is all about.
If Mayweather were a natural 170 pounder facing Canelo at the same weight, it wouldn’t be a fight in my estimation because Canelo would have no advantage aside from his age, which isn’t an advantage all due to his poor stamina. But Canelo DOES have the advantage in weight and it could be a considerable amount of Mayweather comes into the fight weighing 150 lbs. on the night of the fight. If that happens then the real test will be how well Mayweather deals with a fighter that is out-weighing him by 20 pounds.