Lomachenko promising to squash Guillermo Rigondeaux

By Boxing News - 12/06/2017 - Comments

Image: Lomachenko promising to squash Guillermo Rigondeaux

By Chris Williams: Vasyl Lomachenko says he’s not promising to knockout unbeaten Guillermo ‘The Jackal’ Rigondeaux (17-0, 11 KOs) this Saturday night, but he is promising to “squash him.”
Lomachenko-Rigondeaux fight on ESPN this Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Lomachenko is the betting favorite to win the fight, as Rigondeaux is moving up 2 weight classes to fight him. Lomachenko didn’t want to fight at a catch-weight to meet Rigondeaux halfway between 122 and 130. With Lomachenko’s weight advantage, it has many people in boxing believing he’ll be able to impose his size to win the fight and successfully hold onto his WBO super featherweight title.

The squashing reference appears to be Lomachenko’s way of saying he’s going to use his weight advantage over Rigondeaux to get the better of him. It’s very unlikely Lomachenko will have any luck knocking out Rigondeaux, because the Cuban fighter is one of the best defensive wizards in boxing. The fighters that Lomachenko has stopped during his 4-year career have been guys that stood right in front of him and let him tee off on him. We’re guys like Nicholas Walters, Jason Sosa, Roman Martinez, Miguel Marriaga, Ronulo Koasicha and Gamalier Rodriguez. Those fighters were easy to hit, and not just by Lomachenko. They’re easy to hit by anybody

“I said I am going to walk through him like a tank,” said Lomachenko to espn.com. ”They are two different things. I am going to walk through him like a tank and knock him out. They are two different impressions. I am like every single fighter – going into the ring I have in my mind ‘finish the bout before all the rounds are over and to get the victory before that.”

It looks like Lomachenko is backtracking from his original knockout prediction. Lomachenko was saying he’s going to knockout Rigondeaux. Lomachenko must be getting cold feet now that he realizes how hard of a task it’ll be for him to try and score a knockout. It would be the worst mistake Lomachenko can make if he goes all out trying to knockout Rigondeaux, because the southpaw 2-time Olympic Cuban gold medalist will counter him to pieces if he loads up on his power shots all night long. Rigondeaux is like another Floyd Mayweather Jr. In fact, that’s who I see as the most Mayweather-like fighter in boxing today. Mayweather was never as good defensively as Rigondeaux. The Cuban fighter is in another class all by himself when it comes to his defensive and counter punching ability. The only thing that Lomachenko has over Rigondeaux is his size. If Lomachenko’s size works for him, then he’ll win the fight. If not, then he’s in for a long 12 rounds of being schooled by Rigondeaux.

Lomachenko’s promoter Bob Arum might need to have some excuses ready for Saturday night to tell the media after the fight to try and explain away his fighters’ loss. We heard the excuses last time Lomachenko was beaten by Orlando Salido in 2014. The loss was blamed on Salido having a small weight advantage. It was useless excuse, but some boxing fans bought it. The truth is, Salido wore Lomachenko down with body shots the entire night. Salido understood early that it wasn’t worth it to invest his time trying to land head shots, because Lomachenko was moving his head constantly to keep from getting hit. So, Salido chose to throw nothing but body shots, and he found it easy to hit Lomachenko down there. Lomachenko couldn’t handle getting hit to the body, so he spent the entire fight clinching Salido. It was sad to watch a 2-time Olympic gold medalist get exposed the way he did by Salido.

”There is a good possibility that the fight will end before the twelfth round. I am not promising to knock him out but I am promising to squash him,” said Lomachenko.

Rigondeaux had this to say in response to Lomachenko saying he’s going to squash him:

”Good. If he doesn’t do that, I hope you hold him accountable.”

Arum is already looking down the road towards a rematch between Lomachenko and Salido. Arum is so confident that Lomachenko is going to beat Rigondeaux that he’s talking up the Lomachenko-Salido rematch. That’s the fight Arum wants next for Lomachenko. It can still happen, but Lomachenko may be going into the contest with a big fat loss instead of a win. I have my doubts that Arum can even make the fight with Salido, because he didn’t make it before. Salido will want some good money for him to agree to fight Lomachenko in a rematch.

Rigondeaux is going to need to throw single shots for him not to get nailed by Lomachenko’s bigger punches and wind up getting dropped repeatedly. In the fights in which Rigondeaux has been knocked down, he’s been caught by punches from bigger guys while he’s been throwing shots. In those fights, Rigondeaux made adjustments and started throwing single punches. Once he forgot about throwing combinations, Rigondeaux dominated all of those fighters.

Of the 17 guys Rigondeaux has beaten during his career, he had the most problems beating these fighters:

• Robert Marroquin

• Ricardo Cardoba – Rigondeaux beat Cardoba by a 12 round split decision by the scores 117-109, 114-112 for Rigondeaux, and 114-112 for Cardona. That was a difficult fight for Rigondeaux. Cardoba, 5’8”, had a 4 inch height advantage and he was the harder puncher

• Hisashi Amagasa