Guillermo Rigondeaux a free agent, leaves Roc Nation

By Boxing News - 08/02/2018 - Comments

Image: Guillermo Rigondeaux a free agent, leaves Roc Nation

By Chris Williams: Former super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux and his promoter at Roc Nation Sports have gone their separate ways, according to ESPN. The 37-year-old Rigondeaux, who is coming off an embarrassing 6th round stoppage loss to former World Boxing Organization super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko on December 10 last year, is now a free agent once again and can sign with another promoter.

The two-time Cuban Olympic gold medalist Rigondeaux still had one-year left on his contract with Roc Nation Sports. Rigondeaux’s old promoter Dino Duva didn’t have anything for him.

”But we weren’t able to come up with anything significant for him, and he’s in the later part of his career, so if he’s a free agent, maybe he can go make a fight for himself,” Duva said to ESPN.com. “We’re OK with that and we wish him the best.”

Rigondeaux probably can capture another world title at 122 if he’s given the opportunity to fight for a world title. Rigondeaux lost his last fight to Lomachenko after he moved up two entire weight classes from 122 to 130. There’s not too many fighters that from the super bantamweight division that could move up in weight from super bantamweight to super featherweight to take on a highly skilled fighter like Lomachenko.

The Ukrainian beats guys at his own weight division and higher, and of course it was only obvious that Rigondeaux would have lost to him as well. There’s nobody at 122 that would have done any better than Rigondeaux if they had moved up to 130 to take on Lomachenko. It’s just too bad that Lomachenko didn’t at least give Rigondeaux a catch-weight in order to make the fight a little fairer.

Rigondeaux has been with Roc Nation Sports since 2015. Before Rigondeaux’s loss to Lomachenko, he had stopped Moises Flores, James Dickens, Hisashi Amagasa and Anusorm Yotjan in the last four years. Rigondeaux had also beaten the hard hitting Drian Fernandez. Rigondeaux fought in an arguably more entertaining style than Lomanchenko has in four of his last five fights. The only fight that Rigondeaux wasn’t entertaining was in his contest against Lomachenko, and that was because he was injured.

The only really boring fights that Rigondeaux has been involved in since he signed with Roc Nation was when he fought guys that were bigger than him in super featherweight Drian Fernandez and Lomacheko. You can’t blame Rigondeaux for fighting defensively against taller, heavier fighters like Fernandez and Lomachenko. If you took those fighters and had the move up two weight classes to face interim WBC light welterweight champion Regis Prograis at 140, you can bet they would fight defensively as well. If Lomachenko and Fernandez didn’t fight defensively against Prograis, they’d both be knocked out. They would need to be even more boring and careful than Rigondeaux did against Prograis. Lomachenko was knocked out by Jorge Linares in his last fight. Just imagine what Lomachenko would experience if he moved up two weight classes and took on Prograis.