By Bill "Two Scoops" Emes
Much was made over the 157-pound catch-weight for Saturday's middleweight title fight between WBC king Miguel Cotto and challenger Daniel Geale.
Geale struggled to get down to the weight and had the appearance of a severely drained fighter at Friday's weighin when he stepped on the scale and made weight. By the time of the fight, Geale had packed on a lot of weight. HBO's unofficial scale had him at 182-pounds (with street clothes) about an hour or two before the fight.
The extra weight made no difference. Geale was dominated, dropped twice and stopped in the fourth round.
While he makes no excuses, he admits his performance was affected by the struggle to get down in weight.
"I don't want to make excuses at all. We made the weight. It wasn't easy, it's never easy. I didn't feel 100% out there. Miguel Cotto is a great champion, a great fighter. He's one of the best fighters in the world. I'm not going to blame three extra pounds on what happened. I got caught and that's what happened," Geale said.
Geale's promoter, Gary Shaw, is still very opposed to catch-weight fights.
"I personally am still opposed to catch-weights in championship fights. I believe the champion can fight at whatever weight he wants to, as long as it's not over the limit of that weight class, but he shouldn't take that advantage and make that [challenger] technically not be in that weight class. Daniel is a true 160-pound champion. And he's honest, the last three pounds were really tough. But he rehydrated and he was who he was out there," Shaw said.