By James Slater: So much for Robert “Bam Bam” Rios “feeling great” due to getting a nutritionist so as to be able to continue to make the 135-pound lightweight limit. Yesterday, at the weigh-in for tonight’s WBA title fight with Richard Abril, Rios came in at 137 and then, after being given 45-mins to try and lose the two-pounds, he came back and scaled 139!
As was the case ahead of his last fight, with Britain’s John Murray, Rios has been fined ($45,000 this time – as well as being ordered to pay Abril an undisclosed sum) and will now be unable to win the WBA belt even if he defeats Abril in Las Vegas. Abril, the interim champ, can win the full belt by picking up a victory, while he will remain as interim champ even if he is defeated tonight at The Mandalay Bay.
After “nearly killing himself” to get down to 136-pounds for the Murray fight, and “feeling like a zombie” as a result (yet still having enough inside to be able to pound out a late stoppage over a gutsy Murray), Rios’ lightweight days looked to be over. Instead, and foolishly as it’s turned out, the man from Oxnard hired a nutritionist and felt he could be as strong as ever at 135. He was wrong, as yesterday’s weigh-in proves.
But how many times should Rios be allowed to enter a lightweight title fight whilst having weighed-in at a considerable amount above the set poundage? What if Abril, as would have been his right, turned around and said he wasn’t going to go ahead with the fight unless Rios made 135? There would have been no fight. Rios, rightly, was annoyed when original foe Yuriorkis Gamboa failed to turn up for press conferences to promote the April 14th fight the Cuban was to have with Rios, and Gamboa’s later legal troubles that put paid to the fight also angered Rios – to the extent that Rios called Gamboa unprofessional (amongst other things). But what, if anything other than in an unprofessional way, has Rios just acted?
Okay, he’s a massive lightweight, no longer capable of boiling down to 135, and Rios simply can get now lower than 137. But we all pretty much knew that at the time of the Murray fight. Let’s hope Rios’ weight is being carefully monitored right now; we don’t want him entering the ring as high as junior-middleweight!
Or maybe Rios will be sluggish and drained as a result of his efforts to try and make weight. Could Abril be on the verge of winning via huge upset?