Yuriorkis Gamboa missed the IBF's mandatory morning-of-fight second trip to the scales today, so he won't be leaving Atlantic City with their featherweight belt no matter what happens in tonight's fight against Jorge Solis. Fightnews.com reported the development this morning. Essentially, that belt is only on the line for Jorge Solis. Gamboa does still have the WBA trinket firmly in his grasp -- their SUPER!!!! title -- so don't worry, if he wins he'll still be paying someone "sanctioning" fees next time out.
This marks the second straight fight where the IBF lightweight doodad was basically given away at the Saturday morning re-weigh. Last September, then-titlist Orlando Salido came in heavy on the morning scales and the title was only on the line for Gamboa to win, which he did. The IBF rules state that a fighter cannot weigh in more than 10 pounds over the limit on the morning of the fight. It's not really the worst rule, but I instinctively hate all rules that "sanctioning" bodies come up with, so I'll try to figure out how to hate this one, too. It's early and I'm tired, someone give me a good (enough) reason.
Solis came in at just over 133 pounds this morning, for the record.
The Gamboa-Solis card is live tonight at 9:45pm EDT on HBO. Bad Left Hook will have round-by-round coverage of the event, and we just might even start early with Top Rank's stream of the off-TV undercard starting at 6pm EST. Tom Zbikowski is fighting again, but more importantly there's an interesting scrap between Teon Kennedy (16-0-1, 7 KO) and Jorge Diaz (15-0, 9 KO) at super bantamweight.