WBA orders Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Moises Flores fight

By Boxing News - 07/19/2016 - Comments

Image: WBA orders Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Moises Flores fight

By Jeff Aranow: After making an easy voluntary title defense last Saturday night against an over-matched fringe contender James “Jazza” Dickens, Rigondeaux got the bad news on Tuesday with the World Boxing Association ordering him to start negotiations with unbeaten WBA interim 122lb champion Moises “Chucky” Flores (25-0, 17 KOs).

Rigondeaux and the 29-year-old Flores have 30 days to negotiate the fight until August 17. A purse bid will be called if the two fighters haven’t successfully negotiated the fight by that date.

This can be viewed as either a negative or a positive for the 35-year-old Rigondeaux, because he does well against aggressive fighters that like to punch. Flores likes to slug and he’s very tall for a super bantamweight at 5’9’. Flores will have a five inch height advantage over Rigondeaux. However, the reach will be almost the same between them.

Rigondeaux broke Dickens’ jaw with a single punch in the 2nd round last Saturday night at the Ice Arena Wales, in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. After the round ended, Dickens failed to come out for round two and the fight was stopped. Rigondeaux landed a big left hand that broke Dickens’ jaw. Rigondeaux then waited on Dickens to see if he would throw any shots so that he could counter him. Dickens did throw one tremendous punch, but it didn’t land cleanly. Had Dicken attempted more punches, he likely would have been knocked out during the round by Rigondeaux because he had the young 25-year-old challenger’s number.

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Jermall Charlo vs. Julian Williams on October 1

Unbeaten IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (24-0, 18 KOs) will be facing unbeaten #1 IBF Julian Williams (22-0-1, 14 KOs) on October 1 in Los Angeles, California. The venue won’t be known for a little while yet. The two fighters reached a deal on Tuesday to avoid a purse bid. This should be an interesting fight.

Charlo, 26, recently made his second successful title defense against Austin Trout last May in beating him by a close 12 round unanimous decision. Charlo fought well for the first six rounds of the fight, but he gassed out badly in the second half of the contest. This allowed former WBA 154lb champion Trout to come on and almost take the victory.

The judges scored the fight 116-112, 115-113 and 116-112. You can argue that Trout made it close enough to almost get a draw out of the fight with his pressure and higher work rate. Charlo was said to be having a hard time making the 154lb weight limit for the fight. He might have to consider moving up in weight to middleweight in the future if he doesn’t want to eventually get beaten by someone that can push a fast pace and not run out of gas. It’s only a matter of time before Charlo gets beaten by someone. It could be Williams if he doesn’t get knocked out in the first six rounds of the fight.

Williams, 26, has the size and the punching power to give Jermall his first loss of his career. Williams has looked really good as of late in beating Marello Matano, Luciano Leonel Cuello, and Arman Ovsepyan. The only negative that you can make about Williams is that he’s not been fighting the same quality of opposition that Jermall has. That doesn’t mean that he can’t beat Jermall. It just means he’s been fighting lesser opposition than him.