He Got Gain

John Duddy, d/b/a Ireland's John Duddy, chugged into the ring in Madison Square Garden on St. Patrick's Eve, weighing 168 pounds. Yet he fought--and won--as a middleweight, a division that maxes out at 160 pounds. More boxing subterfuge? Yes and no. Duddy wasn't doing anything illegal; he was simply bobbing and weaving his way through a glaring loophole, engaging in the increasingly popular practice of ballooning during the 30 or so hours between weigh-in and fight. "I would say it's a dirty little secret," says Greg Sirb, executive director of the Pennsylvania commission, "except everyone does it."

Weigh-ins are scheduled the day before the fight so the principals have time to rehydrate. That's the rationale. But fighters use the interval to add 10, 15, sometimes 20 pounds--mostly water--to their bodies, rendering weight limits irrelevant. Last month former fighter Joey Gamache filed suit against Arturo Gatti, who savaged Gamache in their 2000 bout. Gamache claims that when Gatti went from 141 pounds to 160 pounds between the weigh-in and the fight, he had effectively breached their contract.

This practice of adding weight obviously imperils the undersized opponent--Gamache, who says he weighed 145 pounds when he fought Gatti, still suffers migraines from that beating. But it's also dangerous to heavier fighters, who sometimes take enemas and diuretics to make weight and then undergo IVs and even blood transfusions to bulk back up. "Aside from being generally sluggish, you lose reaction time, balance and reflexes when you put on weight so fast," says Dr. Margaret Goodman, chairman of the medical advisory board of the Nevada boxing commission.

Proposals to move the weigh-in to the day of the fight have been met with opposition, largely from promoters who enjoy the added hype of the weigh-in day. Calls to reduce the number of weight classes--thus blunting the incentive to bulk up--are anathema to sanctioning bodies seeking to hold as many championship fights as possible. An obvious compromise: Emulate Pennsylvania and hold a second weigh-in, the morning of the fight, permitting gains of no more than, say, eight pounds. (The abuse of the current weigh-in system is high on the docket at the Association of Boxing Commissions' July convention.)

The irony is that the benefits from inflating like Sherman Klump often don't outweigh the costs. According to Goodman, the Nevada commission recently conducted a study, cross-referencing fighters' weigh-in weight with their fighting weight. More often than not, the boxer who added less weight was more successful.