How good is Guillermo Rigondeaux?
He’s only had six professional fights, but fight fans are already salivating over Cuban prospect Guillermo Rigondeaux. A simple click of the mouse and you can see what all the fuss is about. In the first round of his bout with Adolfo Landeros, Rigondeaux sprinkles a few light punches towards his opponent, and waits calmly to make a move. Then he out-pivots to get a good punching angle, and throws a lightning fast right and a crippling liver shot. The second one folds Landeros like a summer chair, and that’s that.
Rigondeaux isn’t your average boxer. He’s already hailed as one of the top prospects of the super bantamweight division, and that’s just the beginning. But he differs from most as well in respect to his experience and accomplishments. As an amateur Rigondeaux compiled one of the best records of all-time: 374 wins, and 12 losses. What’s more, in every major amateur competition he’s competed in, he’s brought home a gold medal. That includes one apiece from the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, two from the Amateur World Boxing Championships, one from the Pan Am Games, the Central American and Caribbean Games, and the World Cup. If that’s not formidable I don’t know what is.
"We want to eventually showcase Rigondeaux either on HBO or on one of our pay per view shows,” Bob Arum of Top Rank said. “You know he was considered the greatest amateur in the world. I think that he fits right in there with Yuriorkis Gamboa. I think that he fits right in there with all of those junior featherweights and featherweights and even bantamweight I think that he can make."
For a brief period, Freddie Roach had a hand in training Rigondeaux when he turned pro. He worked on expanding Rigondeaux’s offense, but determined the two were not compatible. Rigondeaux is not primarily an offensive fighter. He uses defense and countering to exploit the openings of his opponent. Nevertheless Roach had some useful things to say about him: "He gets kind of stuck in the Cuban style, amateur boxing, where he scores points and don’t let you score back. He is very hard to hit. Anyone coming to brawl, he will eat up.”
Roach said that he may have more difficulty with a boxer, but Rigondeaux has yet to show it in the ring.
“Most of my thing is to get the other guy into my rhythm, my type of style, and that is boxing. That is what I plan to do,” Rigondeaux explained. “I just need to find my rhythm. Find the other guy’s rhythm and have that work for me. After that, I can figure out what will work for me and what won’t.”
Aside from in the ring strategy, Rigondeaux and Roach also hinted towards of the politics of the sport that apply to him as a big-time prospective fighter. Rigondeaux said: “you get guys with 20-something fights and I only have four fights, [and] their excuse is that I don’t have enough fights [in wanting to fight me]. They don’t want to give me a shot. I say, ‘Why not?’ The money is there so why not give me a shot? Who cares about how many fights I have?”
At the same time, no matter how good you are or how many amateur bouts you have, there’s an unspoken rule that you have to earn it in professional boxing. That means tallying up fights, even if some of them are with lesser guys. Plus, from the perspective of the fans, it seems difficult and unwarranted to accept a titlist with five fights, though he may well have the skills of a champion.
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