I don’t know why they don’t just fight catchweight. It’s exhibition, who cares?
Nobody needs to make weight for a heavyweight fight. It’s a limitless weight class, you can’t weigh too much and boxing has never required boxers to reach a minimum weight to qualify in any division. There have been some sketchy contract requirements for a ‘catchweight’ that set an artificial upper limit on weight I’ve never heard of one requiring a minimum below that weight.
When I was competing, I weighed 185#. Guess what was the BOTTOM weight of the heavyweight class? 
Grappling against 300 pounders, allow me to tell you from experience - in some situations, size DOES matter!
I assume you’re talking about wrestling. I used to wrestle overweight because I wasn’t good enough for a spot at my own weight. Needless to say I had a perfect defeated record. Nobody weighed 300 lbs. but I weighed 172 and faced 200 lb. guys, who also happened to be much better wrestlers than I was.
BJJ/NHB. Club competitions between martial arts schools. Not enough competitors to warrant more than 3 weight classes, and too many guys under 185# to divide light- and middle- differently.
As has been pointed out, there are minimum weight restrictions in wrestling - then again, there is also a maximum weight (285 in college; 235 in high school; I think 135kg (297 5/8 lbs) internationally).
The only college weight class with a minimum is heavyweight; I think it’s 185.
In high school, you cannot wrestle in a weight class unless you weigh more than the weight limit that is two classes below it.
Pretty much as others have said. Boxers lose the reflexes and speed first, but punchers still know how to hit hard, even if they can’t hit as hard as when they were in their prime. Look at George Foreman as an example.
There’s an old story about Jack Dempsey knocking out 2 attempted muggers when he was in his late 70’s early 80’s. Like Tyson, he regularly beat up much bigger opponents
Not sure if I understand this, but if Mike can’t do Head Shots, can you just imagine how long and how much damage it would take to knock someone out with just body-blows? Horrifying thought…
Any way you think of this, its gonna turn out UGLY!
It only takes one shot to the liver to drop a boxer.
Seen it multiple times. The guy hit always just collapses and takes the KO.
As a reminder if anyone isn’t all that familiar with boxing, a “KO” doesn’t usually mean a person is “knocked out” as the term is commonly used (as in, knocked unconscious). A KO means that a person is knocked down and fails to get up after a 10 second count. Meanwhile a TKO (technical knock out) is when a referee determines that a boxer is unable to continue boxing (whether or not they can actually get back on their feet).
I assume that most people participating in this thread know that, but I don’t assume that everyone reading the thread knows that. Which might lead to some confusion about body blows leading to a KO.
And yes, I agree that being punched in the torso until you can no longer fight must be agonizing. It might also mean that the fight is more likely to go to a decision if neither boxer is allowed to land a head blow.
Yes. And it’s rare these days for a boxer to lay on the mat while a referee counts to 10. Many TKOs occur while a boxer is on his feet but clearly (at least in the referees eyes) unable to continue fighting. Sometimes the designation RSF (Referee Stops Fight) is used. Except for some disqualification and no contest technicalities, if a boxer doesn’t finish the fight it is the equivalent of a knockout when listing a boxer’s KO record or percentage. The ring doctor might stop a fight, the corner can throw in the towel, a boxer might just say no mas, all go down in the record as wins, and something equivalent to a knockout.
Boxing is not the kind of organized sport where distinctions other than a win-loss record have any meaning except for hype and entertainment. Individual sanctioning bodies and local authorities may have different rules and care about the details, but there is no single authority to maintain records in any detail, or set the standard for criteria like type of knockouts. IIRC a court once had to decide which boxer won a fight as a contractual matter because some agreed upon rules weren’t followed.
It’s also a sport where the contestants can make up the rules for the fight within some broader constraints. And those constraints are pretty broad.
I completely understand that, when you have so much money on the line the results have huge financial implications. And not just for the fighters; I’m sure that there were many gamblers and bookies needing to know the official outcome of the fight. Could you imagine if you were one of those people? Yet another reason why I’m glad I don’t gamble.
I wonder if it also might affect how trainers, promoters, and so on get paid. And if a title is on the line there are other ripples.
Yeah, there’s a lot of money on the line in the big fights. I thought the case I remember was the result of the fight between Puerto Rican Juan La Porte and Dominican Johnny De La Rosa. The fight was held in Puerto Rico and La Porte won a controversial decision, although not really the worst I’ve seen. I can’t find anything about a legal matter following, and I might be mistaken about which fight it was.
And some governing bodies will have certain situations that automatically trigger a TKO. (Three knockdowns in the same round is a common one.)
I wrestled in either the conference or district tournament every year of high school. Not that I was any good, but it was a small school and someone got sick or hurt every year and somehow I was next boy up.
My favorite was junior year. I was of course the bottom seed, and got destroyed by the eventual champion. I then had to weigh in for the wrestle back round (theoretically competing for 3rd place). The ref was paying attention this time and when the scale balance bar clanged, he checked me for underweight, which I was. As a bonus, my opponent was weighing in at the same time and actually laughed.
I got to tell Coach Kral I didn’t make weight (confusing him temporarily). I ate my lunch, drank a ton a water and got reweighed. I proceeded to once again get pinned early in the first period (I may have been skinny, but I also had basically no upper body strength, a deadly combination).
This guy’s a youtuber? All he needs to do is follow this training regimen and he’ll be fine.
Seriously the first time I beat Tyson on Punch Out was (at the time) the greatest video game moment of my life.
Not sure what to make of this. It’s an exhibition, but it’s a real fight?
Yeah, not clear. The only difference that would matter would be counting it in their win-loss records. Probably not significant to either one of them.
“It’s an exhibition, I’m gonna exhibit how to knock a guy out in five seconds.”