An intervention is needed.
Curmel Moton’s epic weight fail shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The 18-year-old lightweight was anything but light Friday when he tipped the scales at 148.7 lbs. for a 133-pound catchweight fight against Bryan Mercado at ACX1 Studios in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Unsurprisingly, Curmel Moton will no longer appear on Saturday’s Swift Promotions show in Atlantic City. Fight described as “postponed” after Moton was nearly 16 pounds over 133-pound contracted limit. pic.twitter.com/9LKMKygCnD
— Jake Donovan (@JakeNDaBox) November 30, 2024
“I want to apologize to everyone that was planning on coming to Jersey to watch me fight,” said Moton. “I’ve been going back and forth with the commission about my bloodwork passing, and as of right now, they lost my blood in their system [which meant the fight was unlikely to be sanctioned].
“I’ve known this for the past three days, so there was no point in killing myself to make [the] weight. They still made me weigh in for some reason, and they decided that was the reason they were going to cancel the fight. Regardless, I’ll be back in Japan on December 30th [at the potential exhibition involving Ryan Garcia]. See you all there.”
Let’s try to make some sense of his explanation. Moton is saying the commission lost the bloodwork, and the fight was off, but was forced to act as if the fight was still happening and showed up to the weigh-in more than 15 pounds over the limit. I don’t know about you, but that just doesn’t sound right to me. Even if the commission lost the bloodwork, they forced you to make a fool of yourself? Sorry, I’m not buying it.
Saying they lost your blood work for you being 15lbs overweight is some of the most diabolical shit I’ve ever heard.
— Ishé Oluwa Kamau Ali Smith (@IsheSugarShay) December 1, 2024
But nonetheless, let’s analyze the data.
Moton has fought four times this year and weighed in between 131¼ lbs. and 139¾ lbs. In the latter example, he fought as a junior welterweight in October, scoring a first-round TKO of Hilario Martinez Moreno in Philadelphia. And just over a month later, Moton came in as a junior middleweight for a lightweight bout.
That would indicate to me that there’s a clear lack of discipline here, but thankfully for Moton, there’s time to fix this. Canelo Alvarez said it perfectly after his most recent win over Edgar Berlanga. “My experience, my talent, my hard work, my intelligence, everything together [makes me the best]. If you have talent but you don’t have discipline, you have nothing.”
Moton taking his newfound fame for granted. He’s a kid in a grown man’s sport, and he’s been constantly hyped over the last year or so. It’s hard to dial back especially when you have people in your ear talking you up as the next Muhammad Ali when you haven’t even faced a live body yet. It’s time to be realistic and pump the brakes for now on Curmel Moton. It’s a good thing he’s making these mistakes now rather than years later when he’s potentially competing for legitimate belts. Once you get further up the food chain, it gets harder to have these father-son-esque conversations.
“Some of these fighters, we spoil them too much,” Mayweather told Fight Hype. “I’m being honest, me and Al [Haymon] together, we both spoil these fighters too much. A lot of them are appreciative, but a lot of them are not appreciative.”
Let’s focus more on boxing and less on fame.
It would be a shame to see Moton’s incredible talent go to waste, but he has an opportunity to put all of this behind him when he fights on Ryan Garcia‘s exhibition card next month in Japan. But if Moton continues on this wrong path, he wouldn’t be the first and certainly won’t be the last to lose his muster in this fashion.
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