By Jim Dower: Former two-time Cuban Olympic Gold Medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux (1-0, 1 KOs) stopped Juan Noriega (3-4) in the 3rd round. Rigondeaux, who twice won Olympic Gold Medals during his amateur career with Cuba, knocked Noriega once in the opening seconds of the 1st round and then went to pound Noriega unceasingly until the referee stepped in and halted the bout in the 3rd at 1:09 of the round.
Rigondeaux looked sharp as he toyed with Noriega for three rounds and showing especially good hand speed.
However, he wasn’t as busy as I would have liked him to be and didn’t attack nearly as much as he should given the poor quality of his opponent.
Rigondeaux threw a lot of sloppy looking punches at times as he flailed with speedy shots. I couldn’t help but think that Rigondeaux may pay for his wild shots when he eventually steps it up against better opponents.
In the 1st round, Rigondeaux, 28, came out fast landing five straight left hands that staggered and sent Noriega to the canvas. A southpaw, Rigondeaux wasn’t bothering to use a jab or his right hand at all. After Noriega got to his feet, Rigondeaux attacked him with left hands to the head and body.
For some reason, Rigondeaux wasn’t using his right hand at all. I thought maybe he had injured it or something because I had never seen a fighter as hyped as much as Rigondeaux only using one arm to fight. I wish I could say that it changed later, but it really didn’t.
Rigondeaux continued to throw mostly left hands for the remainder of the bout, and rarely using his right or throwing a jab. After the first minute of the round, Rigondeaux began standing and posing a lot in front of Noriega, waiving his right arm in front of him and seeming to be waiting for Noriega to throw a punch.
Having seen Rigondeaux in the Olympics, I noticed that he prefers to counter punch rather than attack his opponents. It looked like Rigondeaux was waiting for Noriega to attack him, but he should have realized that the 22-year-old Noriega with his 3-4 record didn’t have the talent or the nerve to attack a fighter like Rigondeaux.
As such, there was long stretches of the round where neither fighter did much of anything other than to stare at each other. Near the end of the round, Rigondeaux staggered Noriega with a straight left hand. Noriega wasn’t really trying to punch and only landed two punches in the entire round.
In the 2nd round, Rigondeaux continued loading up on left with his left hand and not using his right at all. Finally, in the last minute of the round Rigondeaux staggered Noriega with a short right hook. It was one of the few right hands that Rigondeaux threw in the round, and it wasn’t all that hard of a punch.
Noriega just was totally focused on Rigondeaux left hand by that time and wasn’t even thinking about his right. In the final 20 seconds of the round, Rigondeaux put both of his hands down by his sides and seemed to be daring Noriega to try and hit him.
In the 3rd round, Rigondeaux attacked Noriega with left hands, pounding him at will with shots and doing a lot of waiting around for Noriega to try and land something. The referee finally stepped in and stopped the bout after Rigondeaux landed a couple of left hands while having Noriega trapped against the ropes.
By no means was Noriega hurt, but the referee seemed to be tired of the one-sidedness of the fight and opted to put a stop to the bout.
I can’t say I was impressed with Rigondeaux. He’s too reliant on his left hand, has little power and spends too much time waiting around for his opponents to throw something back at him. In contrast to Cuban Olympic Gold Medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa, who punches with a lot of power and attacks his opponents from the word go, Rigondeaux is pretty boring to watch. He may find some success at super bantamweight but I think he’d be destroyed by World Boxing Organization champion Juan Manuel Lopez.
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