By Jake Donovan
The show will go on between middleweights Gennady Golovkin and Marco Antonio Rubio, as both sides agreed to terms for a modified weight limit following Friday’s follies at the scales.
Rubio stripped all the way down to his bare essentials but still tipped the scales at a beefy 161.8 lb, nearly two pounds over the allowed 160 lb. limit for Saturday’s title fight at StubHub Center in Carson, California. The veteran was granted two hours to sweat off the additional weight, but opted to come in at present form rather than further weaken himself, a safe assumption that he didn’t believe he could effectively make weight.
Undisclosed terms were reached between camps to allow the fight to go on, though the believed modified limit for the fight is now 162 lb. Rubio will have to forfeit $100,000 of his purse and is also forced to vacate his interim middleweight title.
Golovkin (30-0, 27KOs) easily made weight, coming in at a chiseled 159 lb. for his West Coast debut. He will remain eligible to contend for Rubio’s interim title, with its only significance coming in that the winner will be named mandatory challenger to World middleweight king Miguel Cotto.
Should Golovkin lose, the otherwise worthless belt will remain vacant. Because Rubio was not able to make weight, Golovkin’s own middleweight title—which he has held since 2010—is no longer at stake.
Even at full strength, Rubio (59-6-1, 51KOs) was a massive underdog heading in to the fight, with oddsmakers placing Golovkin as high as a 50-1 favorite for the HBO headliner.
Rubio previously missed weight for a Dec. ’11 showdown with Matt Vanda, ironically as part of a card centered around the WBC convention in Las Vegas. He went on to win the bout by 5th round knockout and still retain his #1 ranking for a shot at Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., against whom he dropped a 12-round decision in their Feb. ’12 clash.
The lack of post-fight drug testing led to Rubio and his team filing a lawsuit, with a compromise reached more than a year later that he would be reinstated as the mandatory challenger. The ruling put him in line to face Sergio Martinez, but was asked (and compensated) to step aside to allow the Argentine to face Cotto this past June.
Rubio was given the opportunity to fight for the interim title, scoring a highlight reel 10th round knockout over Domenico Spada in April. The WBC was on board to allow its belt to be at stake, despite Golovkin serving as a full champion for another sanctioning body.
Their bout will air live on HBO’s World Championship Boxing, with the show beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET. Opening the telecast, four-division and current featherweight titlist Nonito Donaire faces unbeaten titlist Nicholas Walters in a 12-round featherweight clash.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene.com, as well as the Records Keeper for the Transnational Boxing Ratings Board and a member of Boxing Writers Association of America. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
