By Scott Gilfoid: We’re still waiting to see if Vincente Escobedo’s camp will agree to fight former WBO super featherweight champion Adrien Broner (23-0, 19 KO’s) tonight after Broner came in a few pounds over the 140 pound rehydration limit this morning when he weighed in at 143.5 lbs for tonight’s HBO televised fight. I think Escobedo should just go ahead and take the fight, because it isn’t like he’s going to be coming into the fight against someone that much bigger than him.
It would be interesting to know how much Escobedo rehydrated to. It’s got to be fairly close to Broner’s weight. At best, Broner will probably come into the fight weighing six or seven pounds more than Escobedo. If that’s enough for Escobedo to back out of the fight then it makes you wonder whether he really wanted the fight all that much to begin with, doesn’t it? How come fighters like WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is allowed to routinely rehydrate from 160 lbs to 180 lbs for his fights? If Chavez Jr. is being permitted to walk into his fights as a cruiserweight than Broner should be able to come in at welterweight for his lightweight fights. It’s only fair. Unless boxing wants to come up with some rules that prevent this kind of thing then Broner should be allowed to do this.
What will happen is that Broner will probably have to pay a little more of that green stuff to Escobedo for the fight to go ahead tonight. Broner already had to fork over $30,000 to Escobedo after failing to make weight yesterday, as well as giving another $30,000 to the Commission. Escobedo’s management were talking about wanting a $10,000 per pound weight penalty for Broner if he came in over 140. I doubt that Broner’s team ever agreed to that punitive measure, but it hardly matters because Broner is going to make big bank in the future and this is pennies for a talent like him.
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