Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Drian Francisco possible for 12/15

By Boxing News - 11/05/2012 - Comments

Image: Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Drian Francisco possible for 12/15By Chris Williams: WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) could be facing former interim WBA super flyweight champion Drian Francisco (23-1-1, 18 KO’s) on the undercard of the Nonito Donaire vs. Jorge Arce card on December 15th, according to Philboxing.com. Rigondeaux had been mentioned as possibly defending his title against Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym but it looks like Rigondeaux’s promoter Bob Arum prefers to match Rigondeaux up with the Filipino Francisco for the Donaire-Arce card.

It kind of makes sense because the Donaire vs. Arce card will have a ton of Filipinos tuning in to see it and it makes sense to match Rigondeaux up with a Filipino or a Mexican fighter since those are the nationalities of the two fighters in the main event.

Arum can find better than Francisco, however, and this really isn’t a great fight because there are a lot of arguably better fighters that Arum could put in with Rigondeaux if he wanted to find a more exciting fight. Francisco has a good record but when you look at the guys he’s fought during his career it leaves a lot to be desired. He briefly captured the interim WBA super flyweight title in May of last year with a win over Duangpetch Kokietgym, but then he lost his interim title in his next fight to Tepparith Kokietgym.

It’s thought that Arum will match Rigondeaux up with Donaire at some point in 2013 or 2014, after he lets the fight marinate. However, I have a feeling that Donaire will move up to featherweight before Arum gets a chance to do that and we’ll instead not get the opportunity to see whether Donaire was actually any good or just a fighter that beat a lot older guys like Arce, Toshiaki Nishioka and Cristian Mijares. Donaire is being mentioned as fighting Mijares in early 2013.

Rigondeaux was hurt several times in his last fight against one of Arum’s Top Ranks stable fighters Robert Marroquin last September. Rigondeaux easily won the fight but was stunned a few times by the huge 5’8″ Marroquin. It’s hard to imagine how Marroquin can fight at super bantamweight because he looked like a light welterweight that night and possibly was near 140 if not over it. He looked huge, and it’s not surprising Rigondeaux, a natural super bantamweight, was hurt by such a big fighter.



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