By Chris Williams: WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (14-0, 9 KOs) will be fighting this Wednesday night on January 31st against 2nd tier fighter Hisashi Amagasa (28-4-2, 19 KOs) in a fight at the Bodymaker Colosseum, Osaka, in Osaka, Japan.
It obviously isn’t the fight that Rigondeaux was shooting for, because he’d rather take on the top fighters in the 122 pound division. Rigondeaux needs to stay busy since those guys have volunteered to face him.
Tomorrow night’s fight for Rigondeaux is more about him getting a payday while defending his titles. The other champs appear to be waiting the 34-year-old Rigondeaux out until he starts showing signs of age and slippage before they volunteer to face him.
Rigondeaux has taken a lot of heat for not having an exciting style of fighting, but when you compare him to popular fighters like Terence Crawford, you can make an argument that Rigondeaux is more exciting to watch. The main difference is that Rigondeaux doesn’t have a city to back him the way Crawford does when he fights at home in Omaha, Nebraska.
Rigondeaux made Nonito Donaire look really bad last year in beating him by a 12 round decision. It was a masterful performance with Rigondeaux making Donaire, one of HBO’s favorites, look totally outclassed. Interestingly enough, it was after that fight where rumblings started from Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum about the HBO executives not being pleased with Rigondeaux’s fighting style.
Some boxing fans saw this as a case of HBO not being happy with Rigondeaux easily defeating one of their stars. Whatever the case, Rigondeaux fought one more fight on HBO in a mismatch against a rusty Joseph Agbeko, and that was it.
The match-making was pretty horrible because Agbeko had fought only twice in two years, and he really had no business fighting for a world title. He looked rusty and lost the entire fight, and it was too easy for Rigondeaux.
In Rigondeaux’s last fight, he destroyed an over-matched Sod Kokietgym in one round last July. It was an even worst mismatch than the Agbeko fight. Kokietgym looked like he’d just woken up before climbing into the ring, and he was totally out of his league in this fight.
“This is my second time fighting in Asia this year,” Rigondeaux said via Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. “I am very frustrated that the other world belt holders are running scared and won’t fight me. It’s disgraceful that we couldn’t find a world-class, 122-pound fighter to fight me, so I would like to thank Amagasa for dropping down from featherweight to challenge me.”
Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic gold medalist from Cuba, is finding out the hard way that the pro game is totally different from the Olympics. In the amateur game the top fighters had to face each other because they had no choice, but in the pro game it’s a totally different ball game.
The top fighters tend to avoid the most talented fighters, and they often milk their titles against weaker foes rather than seeking out the best. When a top fighter does take on a dangerous threat, it’s usually a situation where even if they lose, they’ll make so much money that it will be worth it to them.
Rigondeaux, 5’4”, will be giving up a lot of size to the 5’10 ½” rail thin Amagasa tomorrow night, so we’re likely going to see Rigondeaux getting on the inside to land his shots rather than staying on the outside. He can’t stay at a distance because Amagasa will jab all night long.
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