BoxRec

Why do so many boxers torture themselves to get down to a particular fighting weight when it's not natural/healthy to do so?

I get it when your body is developing when you still have unfinished business in that weight division rather than move up, but some fighters spend most of their careers yoyo-ing in weight. It can't be healthy.

I've seen pictures of Maidana looking at least 20 pounds heavier, plus there's Hatton's history of ballooning up between fights. Prince Naseem is probably the most striking difference, but perhaps that is due to age and a conscious change of lifestyle. Roberto Duran used to take diuretics to get down to light-middleweight, then there are the Broners and Cabballeros of this world who can't even make the weight.

Why don't they just fight at a heavier weight class so they don't have to dehydrate themselves, overtrain and risk illness?

surfthehurf wrote:Why do so many boxers torture themselves to get down to a particular fighting weight when it's not natural/healthy to do so?

I get it when your body is developing when you still have unfinished business in that weight division rather than move up, but some fighters spend most of their careers yoyo-ing in weight. It can't be healthy.

I've seen pictures of Maidana looking at least 20 pounds heavier, plus there's Hatton's history of ballooning up between fights. Prince Naseem is probably the most striking difference, but perhaps that is due to age and a conscious change of lifestyle. Roberto Duran used to take diuretics to get down to light-middleweight, then there are the Broners and Cabballeros of this world who can't even make the weight.

Why don't they just fight at a heavier weight class so they don't have to dehydrate themselves, overtrain and risk illness?

What are you suggesting, that Hatton should have stayed fat and fought at light-heavyweight? There's two obvious reasons he didn't do this. First, he would have been unfit, slow and rubbish if he didn't take that weight off and secondly, even if he wasn't unfit he'd have been destroyed fighting much bigger people who were naturally fit at his "between fights weight".

Dehydrating and losing excess fat are wildly different things.

Not sure what the question is but some fighters will burst their balls losing they extra few pounds to make a certain weight limit because of the physical advantages it gives them after they weigh in and rehydrate etc...