clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Danny Garcia to fight Rod Salka at 142-pound catchweight

Now that the WBC and WBA refused to sanction this bout as a title fight, Danny and his team have decided they no longer need to make the contracted 140-pound weight limit.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Spor
Wil Esco is an assistant editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2014.

Lets be perfectly clear, Garcia-Salka had absolutely no right to be a sanctioned title fight, with Rod Salka not even being rated at 135-pounds (where he campaigns) by either sanctioning body - never mind allowing him to fight for a title at 140! Lets at least applaud the WBC/WBA for uncharacteristically making a sensible decision on the matter, even if they were considering this preposterous idea for a time.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, RingTV is reporting that their fight has now been renegotiated to a 142-pound weight limit. Rod Salka (19-3, 3 KOs), who was already taking a major step up in competition, and above his weight class, doesn't seem to mind the additional 2 pound advantage that is being spoon-fed to Garcia.

"I'm sure that everybody will look at the extra weight as an advantage for him because he gets to come in two pounds heavier, but, if you know what I mean, it doesn't matter," said Salka. "People probably would assume that anyway, so I'm fine with that. If he wants to come in at 150, he can come in at 150, know what I mean?

"It doesn't make a difference. I'm the smaller guy, regardless. It's not like he can add 20 pounds of muscle in the next couple of weeks. It just means that he doesn't have to kill himself as much to get down. Whatever. It's still the same guy in there, and if they want to pay me to come in heavier, that's okay with me, too. It's not like I wake up weighing 140 pounds. I have to cut to that weight, too."

Maybe that's so, that Salka does too need to cut weight, but most every fighter cuts weight to fight in their respective weight classes. Danny Garcia is already the larger man who fights in a heavier weight class so I do believe that the renegotiated weight limit will favor the already heavily favored Garcia.

"It was maybe about a week ago that, once we realized that it wasn't going to be for the title, he decided that he didn't want to make 140," said Salka, of a weight increase that was confirmed by Golden Boy Vice President and matchmaker Eric Gomez. "So we just renegotiated the contract. He wanted more pounds, so he and I renegotiated a separate amount per pound thing on that. I'm making more money all around."

I don't particularly like this way of doing business, but it happens fairly often. Most fans were discouraged that Garcia was even matched-up with Salka in the first place. The fact they tried to swindle this into being a title fight caused even further outrage, and I doubt this latest move to give Garcia even more of an advantage will win him many more fans out there. But at least Salka is getting some more money out of it, and hopefully sufficient enough money to restore some kind of universal balance to this twisted world of boxing.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for the Bad Left Hook Daily Roundup newsletter!

A daily roundup of all your global boxing news from Bad Left Hook