Weights: Gonzalez 125, Russell Jr 125.8

By Boxing News - 03/27/2015 - Comments

gonzalez6(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) By Dan Ambrose: WBC featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez (57-8, 48 KOs) successfully weighed in on Friday for his title defense on Saturday night against challenger Gary Russell Jr (25-1, 14 KOs) at the Palms Casino Resort, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

The fight will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing. Russell Jr weighed in at 125.8. The winner of the Gonzalez-Russell Jr fight will likely face former three division world champion Abner Mares.

In the co-feature, Jermell Charlo (25-0, 11 KOs) weighed in at 154.8 pounds for his fight against Vanes Martirosyan (35-1-1, 21 KOs). This is an important fight for both guys as they’re looking to get a title shot and they both need a victory here. Martirosyan weighed in at 153 pounds.

Russell Jr was beaten by Vasyl Lomachenko by a 12 round majority decision last year in June. Russell Jr was pretty well dominated by Lomachenko, and it’s hard to see that fight as an actual 12 round majority decision. Russell Jr has since won his last fight in defeating Christopher Martin by a 10 round unanimous decision last December.

Gonzalez, 33, has a big advantage in the power department. However, he may have trouble landing his shots because Russell Jr is going to be fighting defensively to keep out of the way of Gonzalez’s big shots. He’s not going to put himself in harm’s way the same way that Abner Mares did in his 1st round knockout loss to Gonzalez in 2013.

It’s difficult to know whether Gonzalez has enough in the tank to beat someone as good as Russell Jr. Yeah, Gonzalez defeated Mares two years ago, but he’s done zero since then in beat little known fringe contender Clive Atwell by a 10th round technical decision last year in May.

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In Gonzalez’s last fight he defeated an over the hill Jorge Arce by an 11th round knockout last year in October. Gonzalez looked like he was carrying Arce the entire fight rather than finishing him off quickly the way he could have and should have.

It was a fight that was a farce because Arce had been retired for over a year, and then he came back and fought a couple of 2nd tier fighters to get a world title shot. Arce didn’t beat anyone remotely good to get the fight.

Official weights:

Jermell Charlo 154.8 vs. Vanes Martirosyan 153
Jermall Charlo 157 vs. Michael Finney 155
J’Leon Love 168* vs. Scott Sigmon 164
Ronald Gavril 167.5 vs. Elvin Ayala 166
Cesar Seda 123.5 vs. Cesar Juarez 122.75
Thomas Hill 153.5 vs. VJeremiah Page 155.25
Levan Ghvamichava 140.25 vs. Sergio Villanueva 139



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