Mayweather weighs in 4 pounds heavier than Marquez, surprising fight fans

Mayweather 4 pounds heavier than Marquez

LAS VEGAS — Floyd Mayweather Jr. weighed a surprising 146 pounds Friday for his comeback fight against Juan Manuel Marquez, paying a big financial penalty for two extra pounds.

Mayweather stepped on the MGM Grand Garden stage weighing four pounds more than Marquez, and two pounds more than the fight’s 144-pound catch weight limit. The fighters’ contracts contained an overweight penalty clause that likely moved a six-figure portion of the purse from the undefeated Mayweather to the underdog Marquez, but won’t cancel the bout.

“He loses a substantial amount of money,” said Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, the fight’s promoter. “His advisers and his team are quite upset that he’s going to have to come up with that substantial amount of money.”

Golden Boy generically promoted the fight as a welterweight (under 147 pounds) bout, but the contracted weight of 144 was close to a midpoint between the more typical weights of Mayweather and Marquez, a natural featherweight who has never fought above the 135-pound lightweight limit.

Mayweather made the change Friday morning when he realized he wouldn’t make the limit, said Keith Kizer, the executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission.

“It’s pretty rare, but it’s something that’s between the two fighters in this case,” said Kizer, noting the bout isn’t for a title. “It happens every once in a while when somebody realizes they can’t make weight a week before the fight, but it’s rare that it happens four hours (before the weigh-in). They have the ability to move up if that’s what they want.”

Schaefer wouldn’t disclose the total penalty paid by Mayweather, who didn’t appear the slightest bit concerned by the extra weight while playing to a lively weigh-in crowd that included a few hundred Mayweather fans. It was a marked change from his last weigh-in at the MGM Grand for his December 2007 bout with Ricky Hatton, when the English-dominated crowd gleefully chanted “Floyd’s only got one fan!”

Still, Marquez clearly was the crowd favorite, greeted with chants and cheers from thousands of flag-waving fans of Mexican heritage.

Mayweather followed in Oscar De La Hoya’s footsteps by picking on somebody who wasn’t his own size, but De La Hoya’s decision to fight Manny Pacquiao last year didn’t work out so well. After Pacquiao weighed in at 142 pounds last December, nine months after fighting at 129, he demolished De La Hoya, who struggled and starved to get to 145.

Pacquiao stopped De La Hoya after the eighth round.

“Sometimes size matters, and sometimes size doesn’t matter,” Schaefer said. “I really don’t know what the implications of that are, but all of that was contractually dealt with, so it was no surprise to me, it was no surprise to Marquez, and it was no surprise to Mayweather.”