By Dan Ambrose: WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (10-0, 8 KO’s) will be getting a nice little payday this Saturday night when he takes on fringe Top Rank contender Robert Marroquin (22-1, 15 KO’s) in what should be an incredibly easy title defense on the undercard of the $49.99 pay per view card headed by WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rigondeaux’s manager Gary Hyde reportedly worked out a deal with Top Rank so that the Rigondeaux-Marroquin fight can take place on the Chavez Jr-Martinez card. The fight itself is kind of a nothing fight, but this is the guy that Top Rank wants Rigondeaux to fight for some odd reason. Marroquin is one of their Top Rank fighters, and you have to imagine it’s a big gamble on their part to where they’re likely hoping that Marroquin can put in a good showing in losing to Rigondeaux.

Frankly, I think it’s going to be more of a case where Marroquin is going to look horrible in losing. You don’t want to see inexperienced 22-year-olds like Marroquin put in with the best fighter in the super bantamweight division when Marroquin is already having problems against 2nd tier opposition. That’s a terrible gamble to put a guy that’s more of a prospect than an actual contender in with the best fighter in the division. Rigondeaux is going to really school this guy and it’s not going to be pretty.

Despite the Rigondeaux-Marroquin fight being a bad mismatch it’s still a lot better than most of the fights on this expensive PPV card. There’s not much to really get excited about with this card except for the main event between Chavez Jr and Martinez. It’s one of the worst undercards I’ve ever seen before for an expensive $49.99 fight card. Top Rank might as well have not shown an undercard and instead used an hour to televise a Chavez Jr-Martinez preview. I think that would be much more entertaining than watching these fights by far.

None of the undercard fights appear to be competitive match-ups and none of them in my view are fighters that belong on a PPV card except for Rigondeaux, but his fight is a terrible mismatch. I see Marroquin as a step down from Rigondeaux’s last opponent Teon Kennady. Of course, Marroquin is a Top Rank fighter, so it’s understand why he’s thrown in there with Rigondeaux. But it just makes the fight seem like a bout between fighters belonging to a club than a true world class fight.

Here’s the fights on the card:

Roman Martinez vs. Miguel Beltran Jr
Sergio Gabriel Martinez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Robert Marroquin
Matthew Macklin vs. Joachim Alcine
John Jackson vs. Willie Nelson
Mike Lee vs. Paul Harness