01.06.07 – By Gary Jones: Middleweight Edison Miranda (28-2, 24 KO’s) is blaming his recent May 19th, 7th round TKO defeat by Kelly Pavlik on weight loss, according to ESPN. Miranda states, in part, that he didn’t eat for the last two days before the fight (Thursday and Friday) and was in a weakened condition for the bout. Even then, he failed to make weight on his first try at the weigh-in, and was forced to take off extra weight to make the next weigh-in attempt, which he successfully made.
Miranda goes on to say, he’ll be moving up to fight in the super middleweight division (168 lbs). If what Miranda says is true, it would help explain his lethargic appearance against Pavlik, in which he seemed weak from the very start of the bout. His usually tremendous punching power was seemingly gone, and he appeared to be throwing pitty-pat punches at Pavlik.
In contrast, in Miranda’s two prior bouts against Allan Green and Willie Gibbs, he seemed both huge and powerful, landing huge shots from the very beginning of the fight. Against Pavlik, Miranda never really did get going, throwing punches with nothing on them and continuously backing away from Pavlik. This would also explain the weak, dried out look to Miranda’s appearance, as if he hadn’t been eating or drinking enough fluids to keep his weight up. What most people fail to realize, is that Miranda walks around at 180 lbs, all muscle, not fat, and is forced to trim off 20 lbs of pure muscle for every fight to make the 160 lb weight limit for the middleweight division. It’s something that is extremely hard to do, no doubt, and even when it’s done correctly, the fighter isn’t anywhere near 100%. In Miranda’s case, he apparently didn’t take the weight off correctly, and he paid for it.