Matthysse weighs in at 138.5 (fights at 163.5)

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Nice work from David Greisman as usual: http://www.boxingscene.com/fighting-words-who-stand-up-lucas-matthysse--61823

Lucas Matthysse outweighed Mike Dallas by 12 pounds come fight night. So, for a light welterweight contest, Dallas entered the ring as a junior middleweight, Matthysse a super middleweight.

Why do we have all of those divisions again?

Truss, can you stop telling everyone that they "don't understand" the given subject whenever someone disagrees with your theories that all athletes should be allowed to take PEDs and / or that fighters should be allowed to weigh whatever they want on fight night, please? It's a discussion / debate at the end of the day and it's a wee bit annoying to say the least when you keep pulling out that line. Cheers.

How the hell does a man put that much weight on post weigh in? It's 24 hours, not days!

He is only making that weight because he is given a decent rehydration period afterwards. If he wasnt allowed to rehydrate for 36 hours then he probably wouldnt fight at 140lbs because he would be pretty dead at the weight. So its relevant to the system in place. I dont blame Matthysse for exploiting the system if he can, hes not breaking any rules. But I think the system needs ammending to disallow fighters from putting on such a large amount of weight in between weigh in and fight.

Bodybuilders who bleed their bodies do it for shows......Means he's really had to strip to make the weight....Shorten his career..burning muscle instead of fat!!....

Bodybuilders lose an inch on their arms/chest/thighs in the last few weeks...

Matty Hilton was another one.....like Matthysse

Ever seen a plant that's dying keel over then spring back to life when it's watered..

Hilton and this guy naturally put on weight easier..end of

Same concept..

It probably does shorten careers and have its cons but I think the system in general should just be ammended not not allow it. What is achieved by allowing it? Certain fighters put their body through hell to make a weight because they know they can rehydrate huge amounts to gain a size advantage. Why not just limit this and make fighters fight in a more suitable weight class.

I dont think the "its too dangerous" argument is all that relevant anymore because there are enough weight classes now that fighters shouldnt be killing themselves making weight. If they are, then thats the risk the take. And besides, Im not advocaating no rehydration period at all, just one within reason which doesnt allow fighters to jump numerous weight classes. Its probably just as dangerous now having massive size mismatches. If you were a small light welterweight going up against a powerful gigantic one like Matthysse then your just as vulnerable.

Dehydrating is perfectly legal and happens with almost every fighter (apart from Manny/Floyd who fight at the weigh in weight) but I agree that it does make a bit of a mockery of the weight divisions and can have adverse effects on the body

Yes you can have a huge weight advantage over your opponent, but putting/cutting huge masses of weight on/off have negative effects on you performance such as dulled reflexes, lethargic hand/foot speed, weakened punch resistance and inability to hold down a pace

Rios, Chavez, Ortiz and Salido have all been suspect of this. Rios regularly weighed 155lbs on the night of fights at lightwelter and managed to perform wellagainst Acosta, Peterson and Antillon at this ring weight. However, despite weighing about the same, he couldn't perform in that manner against Murray and Abril an was lethargic and exhausted. Chavez too weighed 180-185 every fight and put in a performance agaisnt Zbik, Manfredo and Lee but against Rubio and Martinez he was flat footed, exhausted little power. Ortiz weighed 160 at lightwelter hence the poor showing vs Peterson, and at welter he weighs up to 165lbs. Salido weighed about147 against Garcia the other week and his punch resistance just vanished

There's a risk and should you want to shorten your career than its your choice. As I said in the other thread Matthysse usually weighs about 149/150 and to me he didn't look a whole stone heavier than he usually does. He didnt look overly gaunt/drained at the weigh in so it surprised me to see that it wasn't a typo. It may just be a one off as he knew he could just bulldoze Dallas so didn't want to cut the weight properly but by just draining himself

Whatever the evidence, I can't see it as anything more than a typo. You could teleport me to the official and fight night weigh in to see him gaining 25 pounds and I still wouldn't believe it. He's built solidly, yes, but if anything he looked smaller than Dallas. Granted, Dallas' ranginess makes him appear bigger, but still he didn't look 12 pounds smaller than Lucas.

As it is, so long as a fighter's doing it without illegal assistance and passing all the necessary tests he's not doing anything wrong, and he usually only weighs the same as Dallas Jr did, so his previous beat down victories haven't been down to weighing 163 pounds.

I think the disagreement on the subject arises from what exactly re hydrating his. Is it an abuse of the rules or is it a natural advantage. If it is a natural advantage then I don't think it should be banned any more than Sugar Ray Leonard should've been made to fight in shackles to even out each fighter's footwork, or Julian Jackson should've been made to fight in 16oz gloves to protect opponents from his immense natural power. Shall we give Golovkin's opponent's headguards to give them a hope of staying up or horse shoes to give them a hope of putting GGG down?

Carl Froch having better stamina than Jermain Taylor certainly endangered Taylor, but we'd never make Froch run ten miles before round 1 just to even things out!

It's an interesting subject, rehydrating.

Weight divisions are far from ideal, but at least every fighter has the same opportunity to cut weight and rehydrate. Some bodies can handle it well. Some bodies need to stick closer to their natural weight. I'd consider the ability to cut weight, rehydrate, and remain strong to be a natural advantage, like speed.

If you can make the weight, then good on you. But you always run that risk of diminished performance, or worse, diminished health.

Its only as natural an advantage as the rules allow. I don’t really see the rehydrating process as in the same bracket as footwork or power. These things have never been regulated, but weight classes have been. I would look at what the intention of having weight classes was, and whether being able to de and re hydrate to give a fighter a big size advantage was ever the intention or within the scope of this principal. To me it isn’t, I think some fighters are just exploited it and I don’t think it was envisioned with this in mind. I think the rehydration period was supposed to be a fail safe to prevent dehydrated fighters entering the ring, rather than a system to try and exploit for size gains.

I don’t know enough of what the discrepancies between weigh in and ring in weight is with most fighters so I don’t know what kind of gains are the norm. Maybe it isn’t as prevalent and its just the odd fighter that is doing it. But I still think there should be a limit on what you can rehydrate to as you really shouldn’t be entering the ring dehydrated, and the system allows fighters to get round this to hit certain weight limits they could never fight effectively at.

As I mentioned above, there are so many weight classes now that I would have though there is no need to be badly cutting weight for fighters.

There is no need, but a fighter will do everything they can to gain an advantage. Had Lucas weighed the same as Dallas, would anybody here - knowing the actual result - have bet on Dallas to actually win? No. OK Ghosty may have.

My opinions on this are conflicted, talent will win out overall as I don't think Mayweather's ever got near 160 but nobody would pick Lucas to win more than one or two rounds against him. On the other hand, everything Manos said.

perhaps weigh in a month before the fight then at 2 weeks then a week till fight night and a weigh in on the day then few days after the fight all of which have to be in limit of each over, so that they would have to be fighting somewhere near there actual weight rather than boiling down then piling it back up

just a idea anyway, as most fighters are fighting well below there natural weight.