Well; lets put it this way. It certainly weighed more than its 88" of length; nose tip to tail fork. In fact, I'd venture to say that any one of the 4 fillets (top and bottom, both sides) easily weighed more than 88 pounds. We know - because it took 2 guys to pick one up.
What Josko omitted is how you fight a giant bluefin on a Penn 130 without a chair. Commercial bluefin style. Very simple. Brutally effective
You leave the rod in the gunwale holder; which has been altered to swivel in at least a 120 degree arc. Now you straddle the gunwale; one leg inboard, one leg outboard and crank. Sometimes the handle moves; sometimes you lean on the reel handle with two hands and your whole weight to get it to move a quarter turn while the mate holds the rod handle and guides the line back onto the reel level.
There is no backing down with the boat; instead as Josko describe its setup to keep the fish on its quarter, constantly turning in and paralleling the fish so that once the fish has stopped running and is swimming with the boat, you crank it in an inch at a time, like pulling a horse in on a tether. The rod is swiveled at the fish and the boat and the cranker, as well as the mate, all work in concert to gradually lessen the distance.