By Chris Williams: Jim Lampley of HBO says he’d like to see WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux face the winner of Saturday’s fight on HBO between IBF super bantamweight champion Jhonatan Romero (23-0, 12 KO’s) and Kiko Martinez (28-4, 20 KO’s) at the Revel Resort, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA.
Lampley may not know this, but Martinez and Romero are huge steps down from the guy that Rigondeaux just beat in Nonito Donaire.
Lampley said to RingTV “In order to make Rigondeaux interesting in the division and in the ring as skills as he is and as dominant as he is, we need punchers to go at him. We need somebody who can go straight forward and challenge Rigondeaux stylistically. Romero is taller, longer and probably a better boxer, and the favorite against Martinez…maybe he’s the guy who could provide a challenge for Rigondeaux.”
Romero isn’t the guy that could provide a challenge for Rigondeaux. Romero is the guy that barely won his last fight against Alejandro Lopez last February in winning a 12 round split decision to capture the vacant IBF 122 lb. title, and Lopez wouldn’t stand a chance against Rigondeaux. It’s surprising that Lampley doesn’t know these things.
If he had sat down and looked at all the weak opponents that Romero has built his unbeaten record on, and seen how he barely beat Lopez, he’d know that Romero would not be a good opponent for Rigondeaux. And Kiko Martinez would be an even easier fight for Rigondeaux. Martinez was stopped in the 9th round last February by Carl Frampton. Lampley should know that as well. Maybe he’s figuring that casual boxing fans won’t be wise to Romero and Martinez about how flawed they are.
A good fight for Rigondeaux would be Frampton, but getting Frampton’s promoter to agree to put him in with Rigondeaux is the whole problem. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. It would great if it did happen, but I don’t see it.
Lampley isn’t the one that calls the shots with HBO as far as which fights and fighters they want for their network. He might like the idea of Rigondeaux fighting super bantamweights like Romero and Martinez, but if the top executives at HBO don’t want to see those kinds of fights, then it’ll never happen. If HBO is trying to build-up Romero then it’s doubtful they’ll want to put him in with Rigondeaux, because we already saw Rigondeaux beat one of HBO’s top fighters in Nonito Donaire last April. Rigondeaux could spoil it for HBO by beating Romero badly before he’s even built up a fan base.
Why isn’t Lampley pushing to have Donaire face Rigondeaux again? That’s the big question.
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