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Jacobs fails weight check; Canelo fight still on

LAS VEGAS — Daniel Jacobs badly missed weight at a contractually agreed-upon weight check on Saturday morning ahead of his mega-fight with Canelo Alvarez at T-Mobile Arena.

The fight to unify their three middleweight title belts is still on for later Saturday (DAZN, 9 p.m. ET). Jacobs, while still eligible to win the titles, will take a financial hit and has angered Alvarez.

Jacobs was 173.6 pounds, well over the 170-pound rehydration limit they had in their contract. Alvarez was 169 pounds, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya told ESPN.

Both sides initially told ESPN that there was a confidentiality clause in the contract that prevented either side from publicly disclosing the weight-check weights, but De La Hoya later went on the record about it.

“Jacobs came in heavy. It is what it is,” De La Hoya said. “We spoke to Canelo, and his attitude is, ‘I don’t care. I’m still gonna kick his ass.’ Canelo is pissed off, and he wants to kick his ass. Canelo was 169, solid and feeling stronger than ever. But the fact that Jacobs came in heavy tells you a lot. It tells you how unsure he is in himself.”

They both made the 160-pound middleweight division limit Friday afternoon, with Alvarez weighing 159.5 pounds and Jacobs 160, but they were subject to a weight check at 8 a.m. PT in their respective hotel suites, with a member of the other camp on hand to observe — a contractual clause demanded by Alvarez’s team because of Jacobs’ size advantage.

But Jacobs either could not or did not want to hold his weight down and put himself at a physical disadvantage by being weak for the fight, so he was not even close to 170.

De La Hoya declined to discuss the financial penalty specifics, but a source with knowledge of the deal told ESPN that because Jacobs was over, he is subject to a $250,000 fine per pound plus the fraction thereof that he was over 170 pounds. That means Jacobs would be fined $1 million from his guarantee of more than $10 million, although his promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, said Wednesday that he might pay the fine if Jacobs was over.

De La Hoya said he understood Alvarez’s anger but that he was not too upset over it.

“My thought is, as long as both guys made 160 and Canelo looked the stronger fighter during the weigh-in [Friday], that’s all that matters,” De La Hoya said. “We have a fight.”

The Jacobs camp declined to comment immediately following the weight check, citing the confidentiality clause, and then could not be reached after De La Hoya’s public disclosure.

It was not the first time Jacobs has had issues with a weight check on the morning of a fight. When he met then-unified world champion Gennady Golovkin in a 2017 middleweight title fight, Jacobs blew off the IBF’s mandated weight check entirely and was not eligible to win that specific belt later that night in what turned out to be a close decision loss.

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