By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (16-0, 10 KOs) is having visa problems right now and his fight scheduled for this Saturday night on March 12 is in jeopardy.
The 35-year-old Rigondeaux is supposed to face British fighter James “Jazza” Dickens (21-1, 6 KOs) on Saturday night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK. There had been all kinds of interest in that fight from fans, and now it’s unknown if the clash will take place or not.
Rigondeaux-Dickens is scheduled for the undercard of the lightweight title fight between WBO champion Terry Flanagan and Derry Mathews.
Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and the fighter seen by many as the best in the 122lb division, was training in Russia to get ready for his bout against Dickens. However, due to visa problems, Rigondeaux is still in Russia at this time and unable to travel to the UK for the Dickens fight. Promoter Frank Warren is currently putting in the hard work to iron out Rigondeaux’s visa problems at this time, so hopefully the fight can take place if he can make some headway with that issue.
The Dickens fight would have been Rigondeaux’s first since his less than entertaining fight against Drian Francisco last November on the HBO PPV card headlined by Miguel Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Rigondeaux needed to make it exciting in the Francisco fight because it was a showcase situation for him to win over fans facing a guy that’s not relevant in his division. But instead of Rigondeaux putting on a show by slugging with Francisco, he chose to box him for the entire 10 round fight. As such, many of the boxing fans at ringside were less than happy about the fight and they booed frequently.
Dickens, 24, was seen as a guy that had/has no chance against Rigondeaux. Dickens was beaten in the past by Kid Galahad by a 10th round knockout in 2013. Dickens has since won his last five fights against largely obscure opposition. In his last fight, Dickens squeaked by Martin Ward by a narrow 12 round split decision last November. You can argue Ward is Dicken’s best win of his career.
Rigondeaux defeated Top Rank star Nonito Donaire by a 12 round decision in 2013. That was the best win of Rigondeaux’s carreer. However, instead of the win leading to bigger and better things for Rigondeaux in terms of competition, he found himself being matched against the non-stars. It seems that Rigondeaux’s win over Donaire worked against him. Rather than the victory leading to more fights on HBO against better and better competition, Rigondeaux was no longer televised on the network and fighting largely obscure fighters.
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