Chavez Jr-Martinez fight card won’t be the same without Rigondeaux on it

By Boxing News - 08/23/2012 - Comments

Image: Chavez Jr-Martinez fight card won't be the same without Rigondeaux on itBy Chris Williams: The loss of Guillermo Rigondeaux from the September 15th pay per view fight card headed by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez was a critical blow for the card especially given the lack of appealing fights and big time stars on the undercard.

With an asking price of $49.99, it really hurts to have Rigondeaux off the card because there isn’t much there once you get past the Chavez Jr-Martinez fight unless you like mismatches.

I personally didn’t care for the idea of Rigondeaux’s scheduled opponent for that card, Top Rank prospect Robert Marroquin (22-1, 15 KO’s). I hated the idea that Bob Arum of Top Rank was putting a prospect in with Rigondeaux instead of an actual contender, because for one it meant a one-sided fights, and for two it would have given fellow Top Rank fighter IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire just another excuse not to have to fight Rigondeaux. All Donaire would have to say for why he doesn’t want to fight Rigondeaux is that he’s not fighting any recognizable opponents, and he’d be right, at least for the Marroquin fight. But I still wanted to see Rigondeaux fight on the card because there was so precious little to be interested in with that fight card.

Roman Martinez – Miguel Beltran Jr
Sergio Gabriel Martinez – Julio Cesar Chavez Jr
John Jackson – Willie Nelson
Matthew Macklin – Joachim Alcine
Oscar Gonzalez – TBA
Mike Lee – Paul Harness

As you can see the card really needed Rigondeaux on it to beef it up and give it the only real talent on the undercard. I don’t see any of the undercard fighters ever making it to the top and being a champion at this point. At least with Rigondeaux, you’d have an actual champion, even if his opponent was someone that didn’t deserve to share the same ring with him.



Comments are closed.