By Dan Ambrose: WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (10-0, 8 KO’s) is penciled in to fight Top Rank 2nd tier prospect Robert Marroquin (22-1, 15 KO’s) on September 15th on the undercard of the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez bout on HBO pay-per-view at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I don’t see how Rigondeaux is really getting anything out of this fight other than helping Top Rank president Bob Arum increase the value of one of his fighters 22-year-old Marroquin. This is pretty much a win-win situation for Marroquin and Arum/Top Rank because Rigondeaux will bring attention to Marroquin just by fighting him. But it’s not a fight where Rigondeaux increase his own value because he’s facing a non-ranked prospect that’s already been beaten once before. There’s no gain with this fight.

If Rigondeaux’s plan is to keep public pressure on IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire to try and pressure him to finally step up and face him, taking on Marroquin isn’t the way to do it. Unless Arum is promising Rigondeaux an opportunity to fight Donaire if he does him a big favor by fighting the towering 5’8″ Marroquin, there’s really no point in Rigondeaux fighting him.

Instead of fighting an obscure 2nd tier prospect that probably never pan out, Rigondeaux should be at least fighting the guys that Donaire just beat to show fans a comparison between him and Donaire. That means that Rigondeaux should be trying to fight Jeffrey Mathebula, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr, Omar Narvaez, and Fernando Montiel to show what he can do against the same fighters.

But taking on a little known prospect like Marroquin isn’t going to increase Rigondeaux’s value because there’s no advantage to fighting the guy. He’s non-ranked and already got beat not too long ago, and it doesn’t do anything for Rigondeaux. It’s an in house Top Rank fight and that’s about it. If Rigondeaux can’t fight the guys that Donaire just beat then he at least should be facing actual contenders in the division like Rendall Munroe, Alexander Bakhtin, Scott Quigg, Kiko Martinez, Ricardo Cardoba again or Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym.