Alberto Machado hoping to change his fortune in Andrew Cancio rematch

Former junior lightweight titleholder Alberto Machado (21-1, 17 KOs) is looking to bounce back from his first career defeat to Andrew Cancio (20-4-2, 15 KOs) this past February, when he was knocked out with a body shot in a pretty big upset loss. Machado and Cancio will run it back this weekend with the WBA’s ‘regular’ title back on the line, and Machado explains to ESPN what he believes went wrong for him in their first meeting.

“I didn’t talk too much about this because I want to give all the credit to Cancio -- he made it work, he won the fight,” Cancio told ESPN. “But now you question me [about it], I had a situation with my family, I have a baby, 1-year-old, he had surgery.

“So I had to attend to my wife,” Cancio said. “The process of recuperation for a child is very difficult. It was difficult to come here and I came here in [a] condition that I was not used to.”

Machado’s family troubles forced him to be out of the gym more than he otherwise would have during that training camp, and his coach Freddie Roach believes that severely hindered Machado’s ability to make weight properly.

According to Machado, two weeks before the fight he still had 17 pounds to shed, with him still being 11 pounds overweight the week of. Machado continued by saying he was still 6 pounds over a day before the weigh-in, but ultimately says he takes full responsibility for his troubles.

Cancio, however, believes that Machado’s claims about his training camp troubles are just a way to take credit away from him, and says what really happened was that Machado was just in against a fight that he’s never come across before.

“They use the weight excuse as the reason why he got beat up. He went up against a guy that can get hit, got knocked down, got back up, and fought even harder. I told people he’s never been in the ring with a fighter like me.”

Whatever the case may be, Machado says he’s learned from whatever mistakes he made last time out, and says his preparation has been spot on for this rematch. So no excuses this time around.