O’Shaquie Foster needed to strip naked to make weight on his second attempt Thursday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
The WBC super featherweight champion is confident, though, that Abraham Nova will be the fighter pushed to his limit in their 12-round, 126-pound title fight Friday night.
Foster (21-2, 12 KOs), of Orange, Texas, officially weighed in at 130 pounds for their 12-round, 130-pound championship clash in The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. Nova (23-1, 16 KOs), of Albany, New York, stepped on the New York State Athletic Commission’s scale at 129 pounds on his first attempt.
ESPN will air Foster-Nova as the main event of a three-bout broadcast scheduled to start at 9 p.m. ET.
Foster, 30, will make his second defense of a WBC belt he won when he outboxed Mexico’s Rey Vargas (36-1, 22 KOs) and won a 12-round unanimous decision a year ago at Alamodome in San Antonio. Down on two scorecards, Foster first retained his title by knocking out Mexican contender Rocky Hernandez (34-2, 31 KOs) in the 12th round of their memorable October 28 bout in Cancun.
Nova, 30, will fight for a world title inside the same venue where he suffered his only loss as a professional. The Albany, New York native lost that bout to Cuban southpaw Robeisy Ramirez by fifth-round knockout in June 2022.
Foster is listed by DraftKings sportsbook as a 9-1 favorite to beat Nova, the WBC’s 13th-ranked challenger for his title.
The official weights for each of the eight fights on the Foster-Nova undercard are listed below.
ESPN; ESPN Deportes
9 p.m. ET; 6 p.m. PT
Andres Cortes (20-0, 11 KOs), Las Vegas, 130 pounds vs. Bryan Chevalier (20-1-1, 16 KOs), Bayamon, Puerto Rico, 129 pounds, 10 rounds, junior lightweights.
Bruce Carrington (10-0, 6 KOs), Brooklyn, 125.6 pounds vs. Bernard Torres (18-1, 8 KOs), Gran, Norway, 125.4 pounds, 10 rounds, featherweights.
ESPN+
5:30 p.m. ET; 2:30 p.m. PT
Guido Vianello (11-1-1, 9 KOs), Roma, Italy, 242.2 pounds vs. Moses Johnson (11-1-2, 8 KOs), Huntington, New York, 248.4 pounds, 8 rounds, heavyweights.
Isaah Flaherty (6-0, 3 KOs), Queens, New York, 158.4 pounds vs. Julien Baptiste (6-3, 3 KOs), Woburn, Massachusetts, 158.2 pounds, 6 rounds, middleweights.
Ofacio Falcon (10-0, 6 KOs), Bronx, New York, 130 pounds vs. Edward Ceballos (11-4-1, 6 KOs), Phoenix, 129.6 pounds, 6 rounds, junior lightweights.
Delante Johnson (11-0, 5 KOs), Cleveland, 140.4 pounds vs. Paulo Galdino (13-7-2, 9 KOs), Sao Paulo, Brazil, 141.8 pounds, 8 rounds, welterweights.
Euri Cedeno (7-0, 6 KOs), La Romana, Dominican Republic, 159 pounds vs. Antonio Todd (16-9, 9 KOs), Atlanta, 158.6 pounds, 8 rounds, middleweights.
Arnold Gonzalez (13-0, 6 KOs), New York, 150 pounds vs. Charles Stanford (7-4, 4 KOs, 1 NC), Cincinnati, 147.6 pounds, 6 rounds, junior middleweights.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing