Edwin Rodriguez fails to make weight, forfeits 20% of purse

By Boxing News - 11/15/2013 - Comments

ward673By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten Edwin Rodriguez (24-0, 16 KO’s) opted not to attempt to get re-weighed today after coming in 2 pounds over the weigh-in limit at 170 lbs. for his fight on Saturday night against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KO’s). What this means now is that Rodriguez has no chance to capture Ward’s WBA title even if he beats him, and Rodriguez will also be docked 20 of his $1 million purse.

In other words, Rodriguez will lost $200,000 of his purse, which will be split evenly with one half going to Ward and the other half going to the California State Athletic Commission. The extra $100,000 for Ward will fatten up his purse from $1.9 million to $2 million.

That’s a nice chunk of cash for Ward, and he can thank Rodriguez for royally blowing it by failing to take off the extra 2 pounds to make weight after coming in 2 pounds over initially. Rodriguez likely could have taken the 2 pounds off, but it would have been hard on him because he would have had to sweat the weight off, and that in turn would have left him likely weakened for tomorrow’s fight.

Who knows how much trouble Rodriguez had to go through to just to get down to 170 lbs. It might have been a huge ordeal just for him to get this low, so I’m not surprised that he didn’t bother to lose any additional weight.

It doesn’t end there for Rodriguez in losing 20 percent of his purse by failing to make weight. Rodriguez must also must not weigh more than 180 lbs. at the secondary weigh-in at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. If he fails to make the 180 lbs. limit, then presumably the fight will be off. That’s going to be a tough weigh-in for Rodriguez to meet because it means he won’t be able to rehydrate fully until after that weigh-in. In looking at how thin he was today, I’m guessing that Rodriguez will end up rehydrating to 190 or so.

I can definitely see Rodriguez in a situation tomorrow morning where he might need to shed some excess pounds just to get to the 180 lb. limit, and believe me, Rodriguez will definitely put in the effort to make that weight. If he doesn’t get down to the 180 lb. limit then he won’t get the $800K for the fight. If you think it’s bad that he’s not getting the $200,000 that he’s being penalized for not making weight, just imagine losing the entire $1 million for not making the secondary weigh-in tomorrow morning.



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