Joshua Franco comes in six pounds heavy ahead of Kazuto Ioka rematch

UPDATE: Franco’s second weigh-in attempt saw him losing only a half lb in the two hour window, so officially he weighed in at 121.25, obviously still far, far over the 115 lb limit.

As of now, the bout will be going on, though obviously it has lost a lot of luster. For Ioka, he will have the chance to win the now-vacant WBA belt still. — Scott

After settling for a draw in last December’s unification match, Kazuto Ioka relinquished his WBO super flyweight title in favor of pursuing a rematch with WBA champion Joshua Franco. Franco has now almost certainly parted with his belt in less voluntary fashion, as he obliterated the scale at 121.7 pounds.

He technically has two hours to cut more weight, but there’s no way he’s getting down to 115. Ioka (29-2-1, 15 KO), who needed two tries to make weight last time, came in comfortably below the limit at 114.4.

Robert Garcia admits that Franco (18-1-3, 8 KO) ran into “issues” during a “rough week” preceding the weigh-in, to the point where they nearly canceled the bout. Garcia claims he reached an agreement with the promoter before anyone hit the scale and that Franco will attempt to shed as much weight as he can, but at time of writing it’s unclear whether the Japanese Boxing Commission will let the bout proceed.

You’ll recall that the JBC basically ended Daigo Higa’s career by forcing him to move to 118 after losing his 112-lb. title on the scale. They take weight misses seriously.

It’s getting towards the wee hours for even me, who’s in Pacific time, but we’ll endeavor to update the story when we can.