Is it too late for Chacal Rigondeaux?

By Boxing News - 02/29/2016 - Comments

1-RigondeauxWorkout_HoganphotosBy Gerardo Granados: Last Saturday night on February 27 at the Manchester Arena, Lancashire, UK, Carl Frampton fully dominated Scott Quigg to unify the WBA – IBF super bantamweight belts. According to reporters present at the Manchester Arena the atmosphere was awesome, but the main event disappointed due the lack of effort from Quigg during the first 7 rounds.

As the readers already must know, Guillermo “El Chacal” Rigondeaux is scheduled to fight against James Dickens on March 12 at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, UK as part of the undercard for the main even headed by WBO lightweight Terry Flanagan vs challenger Derry Mathews.

Quigg just had surgery to repair the broken jaw suffered in his fight against “The Jackal” Frampton and I don’t believe he would be eager to fight Rigondeaux any time soon. There seems to be no interest form the WBA – IBF Carl Frampton to fight “El Chacal”, because Frampton just called out WBA featherweight Leo Santa Cruz and there is interest in Leo to fight against Carl in a near future.

After a struggle against Cesar Juarez last December to win the vacant WBO super bantam belt stripped from Rigondeaux, Nonito Donaire is scheduled to fight next April 23 against low ranked Zsolt Bedak. Although it would be great to see the Filipino Flash rematch Chacal, after seen Donaire get to fight for a manufactured paper belt and hand pick his last 3 opponents, I suspect that Nonito will never fight Rigondeaux again.

I think that for Guillermo Rigondeaux the last opportunity to get a big fight at the super bantamweight division has just disappeared. The only way Rigondeaux could get a chance to get a big fight is that he looks great defeating James Dickens. But by great, I don’t mean a superb boxing exhibition, but instead to please the crowd which can be hard due Rigondeaux fighting style. If it was the other way around Chacal would head the event and would not be relegated to the undercard.

On paper there aren’t any more big fights at the super bantam division to be made soon. Carl Frampton could end moving up to the featherweight division to challenge Leo Santa Cruz for his WBA title, and I would also include another potential big UK fight between Frampton and feather IBF Lee Selby. Scott Quigg will be out of action for a long time due his broken jaw, and he also could end up moving up to the featherweight division if Frampton moves up to try to get a very lucrative rematch this year.

The top names at the featherweight divisions include: IBF Lee Selby, WBA Leo Santa Cruz, former champions Abner Mares and Fernando Montiel, WBC Gary Russell Jr, WBO Vasyl Lomachenko and possibly former feather WBA Nicholas Walters, if you add Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg then the featherweight division would be stacked with many potential great fights to be made.

Maybe it is time for Rigondeaux to take a big risk and move up to featherweight division, hoping to get any of the big names interested to fight against him. Perhaps Chacal is too small to move up. Possibly with the exception of Vasyl Lomachenko the rest of the big names will not have interest to fight him. But for sure Rigondeaux at 35 years of age can’t give himself the luxury to waste more time.

When past great Cuban boxers fought, they were able to attract the attention from all fight fans and not only form the boxing purist. The names of Sugar Ramos and Mantequilla Napoles always come to my mind when I think of great Cuban boxers, but sadly, I think the name of Guillermo Rigondeaux won’t last long in my memory, if he isn’t able to change his fighting style and do the full transition to prize fighting and understand that he must please the crowd.

I think it is too late for him to become a huge star at the super bantam division, but maybe he should seriously consider moving up to the featherweight division where some of the big names could be interested to fight him due their size advantage. But, what about the readers, do you think that it is too late for Rigondeaux?



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