The T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada is ground zero for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez versus Daniel Jacobs tomorrow night but things almost erupted into full fledged fisticuffs just moments ago here at the weigh-in. After both fighters made weight, Jacobs 160lbs, and Canelo 159.5lbs, their obligatory pre-fight face-off descended into a forehead-to-forehead shoving match which Canelo seemed to take personally. Jacobs explained later that he didn’t like Canelo “bumping me with that big ass head.” After the shove both fighters had to be restrained by members of their camps and Canelo seemed the angrier of the two fighters.
Neither man had anything nice to say about the other and both fighters suggested the other man go perform unnatural acts with their own mother. The packed crowd loved every minute of it and it certainly made for good entertainment. Was it real? It sure seemed real. Welterweight great Marlon Starling likes to say “the worst thing that could happen in a boxing match is a fight breaks out.” Well, if you saw the way Canelo just responded he seemed ready to fight right now, not really a wise move when if he did he could jeopardize the actual fight tomorrow night. Was that just what Jacobs was hoping to do? Try to knock Canelo out of the focused, strategist counter-puncher role we’ve seen Canelo be and get him to charge Jacobs angrily? Jacobs did appear to push the intimidation and the forehead-to-forehead pressure in that face-off. But it was Canelo who “flinched” first and shoved back hard which caused the melee. In the end it’s just a face-off and the fight comes tomorrow, but damn it was fun.
Other weights were as follows:
Vergil Ortiz Jr weighed 147lbs and fights Mauricio Herrera who scaled 146.5lbs
Joseph Diaz Jr weighed 129.5lbs and battles Freddy Fonseca, 130lbs
Lamont Roach weighed 129.5lbs and meets Jonathan Oquendo, 130lbs
Sadam Ali, 147lbs versus Anthony Young, 146lbs
John Ryder, 167.5lbs versus Bilal Akkawy, 167.5lbs
Aram Avagyan, 125.5lbs, versus Francisco Esparza, 126lbs
Alexis Espino, 164lbs, versus Billy Wagner, 161.5lbs