By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten Edwin Rodriguez (24-0, 16 KO’s) successfully weighed in at 179.8 lbs. at today’s 9:00 a.m. secondary weigh-in for his fight tonight against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KO’s) at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California, USA. The weight limit was 180 lbs. for the secondary weigh-in, which means Rodriguez made weight and he’ll be able to face Ward tonight and scoop up his $800,000 afterwards for his purse. The 6’1″ Rodriguez lost 20 percent of his purse on Friday when he came in 2 pounds over the 168 lb. weigh-in limit at 170 lbs. He had two hours to burn off the water weight, but he couldn’t do it and ended up losing $200,000 of his $1 million purse. $100,000 of the cash went to Ward, and the other $100,000 went to the California State Athletic Commission.

Here’s a photo of Rodriguez this morning after making weight by Goosen Tutor Boxing twitter:

#edwinrodriguez weighs in at 179.8 on Nov 11-16-13 pic.twitter.com/5St2j5CFby

— Goossen Tutor Boxing (@GoossenTutor) November 16, 2013

I must say that Rodriguez looked terrible from the photo in making the 180 lb. limit at today’s early morning weigh-in. He looks painfully thin with dark bags under both eyes, and he looks like someone who stayed up the entire night trying to make the weight 180 lb. limit. It was a situation where he might have had to get up early to monitor his weight because he was obviously rehydrating after yesterday’s weigh-in where he came in at 170. Rodriguez looked like a human skeleton during that weigh-in, and I knew that there was no way he could go to sleep looking like that. He must have felt terrible because he looked like he’d drained out a lot of the water weight in his body just to get down to 170.

Rodriguez will now rehydrate to get ready for tonight’s fight, and the way he looks, I wouldn’t doubt that he’ll come in over 190 lbs. when he steps inside the ring to face Ward. However, with Rodriguez putting on a lot of weight the day of the fight, I think it’s likely that he’s going to be drained and weak for the fight. However, I don’t know if it would make any difference even if he was strong for this fight, because the difference in talent between him and Ward are huge. Ward is simply on another level with Rodriguez.

For Rodriguez to win the fight, he’s going to have to come after Ward immediately and look for an early knockout because the longer this fight goes, the more likely that Rodriguez will fatigue due to his struggles to make weight.