Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Daniel Jacobs both made weight Friday for their vacant IBF world middleweight title fight Saturday night at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden, New York.
Derevyanchenko knows, too, that he won’t be alone at the IBF’s second-day weigh-in Saturday morning. Jacobs skipped the IBF’s second-day weigh-in the last time he was supposed to fight for its middleweight title, but that was a strategic decision before he challenged Gennady Golovkin at Madison Square Garden in March 2017.
Jacobs also fought Golovkin for the WBA and WBC middleweight titles he then owned. He skipped that second trip to the scale so that he could add as much weight as he wanted following the New York State Athletic Commission’s weigh-in the morning before their 12-round fight.
Brooklyn’s Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) and Ukraine’s Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KOs) will fight only for the IBF’s middleweight title, thus Jacobs obviously will adhere to the IBF’s second-day weigh-in rule. The 6-feet Jacobs officially weighed 159½ pounds Friday, slightly more than the 5-feet-9 Derevyanchenko (159¼).
Boxers who compete for IBF titles can add no more than 10 pounds above their division’s limit for the sanctioning organization’s second-day weigh-ins. They then can add as much weight as they see fit before they enter the ring.
“I have to make no adjustments,” Jacobs said regarding Saturday’s second-day weigh-in. “See, with the Triple-G fight, everybody thought that I purposely skipped the IBF [second-day] weigh-in. No, I knew that if I beat Triple-G, I’m the champion in everyone’s eyes, regardless of what belt [I would’ve won]. So I just wanted to make sure I got the proper rest. I [didn’t] have to stress about eating a little bit and then not making weight the next day.
“I mean, to me it’s like I’ve done it before and I can get it done. But with the Triple-G fight, the dynamic was completely different. With this fight, only the IBF belt is on the line, so I have to abide by the rules, which I’m 100-percent comfortable doing. It’s just at that time, I really wanted to get my rest and I figured if I beat Triple-G, I’m the champ in everybody’s eyes.”
Jacobs, 31, and Derevyanchenko, 32, will fight for the unclaimed middleweight title the IBF stripped from Golovkin on June 6.
The top-ranked Derevyanchenko was the mandatory challenger for Golovkin’s title when Golovkin was stripped. The IBF ordered a Derevyanchenko-Jacobs bout once it took its 160-pound championship from Golovkin for failing to adhere to the stipulations of the exception it granted him to make a voluntary defense against Vanes Martirosyan on May 5, rather than making a mandatory defense versus Derevyanchenko.
Jacobs-Derevyanchenko will headline HBO’s “World Championship Boxing” tripleheader Saturday night from The Theater at Madison Square Garden. The network’s three-bout broadcast is scheduled to start Saturday at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
The four other fights scheduled to appear on HBO also made weight Friday.
Puerto Rico’s Alberto Machado (20-0, 16 KOs) officially weighed 130 pounds for his WBA world super featherweight title defense against Yuandale Evans (20-1, 14 KOs). Cleveland’s Evans got on the NYSAC’s scale at 129¼ pounds.
New York’s Heather Hardy (21-0, 4 KOs, 1 NC) weighed in at 124½ pounds for her 10-round rematch with Shelly Vincent (23-1, 1 KO) for the vacant WBO women’s featherweight title. Vincent, of Providence, Rhode Island, officially weighed 125¼ pounds.
Hardy defeated Vincent by majority decision in their highly entertaining 10-rounder in August 2016 at Ford Amphitheater in Brooklyn.
–boxingscene
