By Dan Ambrose: After sitting idle for close to a year, Cuban Olympic gold medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux (15-0, 10 KOs) will now be fighting next Saturday night on November 21st against Drian Francisco (28-3-1, 22 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view on the same card as Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Needless to say, this is a great addition for the Cotto-Canelo card, because the undercard recently took a major hit with the loss of the injured Andre Ward, who had to pull out of the card due to a knee problem. Rigondeaux is now the best known fighter on the undercard, and arguably the most talented fighter on the entire card.
That’s not a knock on Cotto and Canelo, because they’re both fine fighters in their own way. But neither of them are in the same talent class as a fighter like Rigondeaux. The only thing that Rigondeaux doesn’t have that they have is a huge fan base. If there were millions upon millions of Cubans living in the United States, I believe Rigondeaux would already be a PPV star, because he’s an incredible talent.
Matching Rigondeaux against the featherweight Francisco, 33, makes sense because it gives Rigondeaux a chance to get used to fighting featherweights. There’s a chance that we could see Rigondeaux challenge for the WBO featherweight title in 2016 against Top Rank fighter Vasyl Lomachenko. Rigondeaux will need to get used to fighting guys that are 15 to 20 pounds heavier than him for him to be able to handle Lomachenko.
Rigondeaux only rehydrates to 126 for his fights at super bantamweight. Lomachenko appears to rehydrate at least 15 pounds for his fights at featherweight, which means that Rigondeaux would potentially be giving away 15 pounds to Lomachenko. Francisco is a huge puncher, and I think he’s a better puncher with better hands speed than Lomachenko. What Francisco doesn’t have is Lomachenko’s superb boxing skills and defensive ability. But as far as power and speed, I think Francisco is superior to Lomachenko. Rigondeaux will have a good fight on his hands against Francisco.
Rigondeaux was stripped of his 122lb titles recently by the WBA and WBO in what some boxing fans saw more as a political thing by the two sanctioning bodies than something that needed to be done. By stripping Rigondeaux of his titles, the WBO cleared the way for the arguably more popular Nonito Donaire to fight for his title against Cesar Juarez on December 11th, and for Scott Quigg and Carl Frampton to have their February fight be a unification fight rather than just having Frampton’s IBF 122lb title on the line.
“After seeing him [Rigondeaux] beat Nonito [Donaire], I told myself that I can do this [beat Rigondeaux],” Francisco told ringtv.com. “It’s also my dream fight. I’m not going to let this pass me by. I’m going to do everything I can to win. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time in how I’m going to beat him. He’s a very technical fighter, he’s an Olympic gold medalist, he’s really good with distance, and he’s great with jabs, straights. I’m thinking I have a chance because I’m an orthodox so I can surprise him,” Francisco said.
Rigondeaux hasn’t fought since beating Hisashi Amagasa last year in December. Rigondeaux purposefully fought in an aggressive manner in that fight in order to make his fighting style more people pleasing, but it resulted in Rigondeaux being knocked down twice in the fight. If he had fought defensively like he usually does, he probably would have pitched and easy shutout win over Amagasa. But as it was, Rigondeaux gave the Japanese fighter a vicious beating in stopping him in the 11th round.
Rigondeaux was dropped twice in the 7th round. However, he got serious with Amagasa after that round, and battered him in knocking him down in the 9th and forcing a stoppage in the 11th. By the time the fight was halted, Rigondeaux was unmercifully pounding the Japanese fighters with huge lefts to the head and right hooks to the body. Amagasa’s face was badly swollen up on one side, and he looked like in terrible shape.
Adding Rigondeaux to the Cotto-Canelo fight card might make a few more boxing fans willing to part with their money to purchase the card on HBO PPV, but I still don’t think it’ll generate the 2.4 million pay-per-view buys that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is predicting it will. I think the fight will bring in 500,000 to 650,000 PPV buys, and possibly even less than that at 300,000. That’s what Cotto vs. Sergio Martinez brought in, and that’s what Canelo’s fight against Alfredo Angulo brought in.
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