Frank Martin (16-0, 12 KOs) weighed in at 134.75 pounds, and Michel ‘La Zarza Ali’ Rivera (24-0, KOs) weighed 134.5 lbs for their WBA light welterweight title eliminator this Saturday night at 10 p.m. ET event at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Las Vegas
The winner of the Martin vs. Rivera fight will be the mandatory for WBA lightweight champion Devin Haney.
“This is one of those fights where I got to bring it to him and be smart; of course, I got to press him,” said Frank Martin to Fighthype about his headliner against Michel Rivera this Saturday night in Las Vegas.
Undercard weigh-in results
José Uzcátegui – 167 ½ lbs. vs. Vladimir Shishkin – 167 ¼ lbs.
Vincent Astrolabio – 117 ½ lbs. vs. Nikolay Potapov – 117 lbs.
h
“I’m going to mix it up now. Yeah,” said Martin when asked if his promoter Errol Spence and trainer Derrick James plan on having him let his hands go more in this fight.
“Everything isn’t just me letting my hands go and throwing them off fast. It’s placing the shots. We want you to feel everything that we hit you with. It’s chess.
“He’s going to want to stay on the outside. As soon as I touch him good, he’s going to be like, ‘Oh.’ Obviously, he’s going to feel like he’s the stronger man.
“So when I hit him, he’s going to wake up and change his whole game plan and try to stay on the outside,” Martin said about the 24-year-old Rivera.
“We’re ready for all that. We’re ready for him to try and box. If he wants to sit down and try and bite down with me, that’s the worse thing he can do because I’m going to knock him out. That’s the worst thing he can do,” said Martin about what will happen if Rivera attempts to go after him.
“We’re going to sit down on our shots and hurt him. We got a game plan for all of that. We got a game plan for whatever he come with, we got something for it. Whether you want to box, stay on the outside or whether you want to bang, we got something for all the styles that he wants to do.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Martin when asked if he’ll be one of the upper-echelon lightweights if he defeats Michel Rivera. “It’s an eliminator. I’m right there. Going out and getting the victory in this fight is super important. I just got to do my thing.
“I can look for a stoppage, but we’re always ready to go 12 rounds. We’re always ready to go the distance. If he slips up in there, it’s definitely man down,” said Martin.