While the in-ring battle between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Saturday May 6th is the one everyone is waiting for, there’s another battle going on behind the scenes right now: Chavez’s battle to get down to the agreed upon catchweight of 164.5 pounds. Chavez Jr. has missed weight several times over his career, most recently two fights ago against Marcos Reyes and most memorably by over 4 pounds back in 2013.
With Canelo Alvarez already moving up a weightclass and being the smaller fighter, his management decided to put some serious teeth into the weight provisions in their bout agreement with Chavez Jr.: if either fighter misses weight, they have to pay $1 million dollars per pound over. The million dollar trigger is sprung the moment you’re over by a fraction of a pound, so if Chavez Jr. is 164.6 pounds, that’s a million right there. If he’s 165.6 pounds, that’s $2 million.
While the clause applies to both fighters, it’s clear that it’s there to keep Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. from choosing to fudge the weigh-in a bit to keep from having to stay on a strict diet leading up to the fight and a hard weight cut that could exhaust his body come fight night. And based on his trainer’s words, it’s working: Julio was 167 pounds on Wednesday and subsisting on 1000 calories a day leading up to the Friday weigh-ins.
Those weigh-ins go down Friday May 5th at 5:30PM EST at the MGM Garden Arena in Las Vegas and will also be streamed live by various outlets. Based on the million dollar weight clause, it could be the most expensive weigh-in you’ll ever witness.
