By Jim Dower: Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux (3-0, 3 KO’s) easily recorded his third second consecutive knockout with a third round stoppage victory over 39-year-old Brazilian GIovanni Andrade (60-12, 49 KO’s) on Friday night at the Fountainbleau Hotel, at Miami Beach, Florida. Rigondeaux, 28, knocked Andrade down in the 2nd and 3rd rounds.
After the second knockdown of the fight, a quick left hook to Andrade’s midsection, the fight was stopped at 2:53 of the 3rd round by referee Samuel Burgos after Andrade failed to beat the count. This was supposed to be a step up for the super bantamweight contender Rigondeaux.
However, it was one-sided from the very start as Rigondeaux took his time and slowly picked Andrade apart punch by punch. For the most part, Andrade threw next to nothing in any of the rounds. He mainly looked scared as if he was afraid to let his hands go for fear of being countered.
Andrade might have been better off, though, if he had took the initiative to go after Rigondeaux because by waiting around for extended periods of time, Andrade was picked apart by the former Cuban Olympic star. In the opening round, Andrade stood in front of Rigondeaux waiting for the Cuban to attack.
Rigondeaux, being a counter puncher, was forced to come forward and start the action. He mostly focused on landing straight left hands using a pawing jaw mainly as a measuring stick to get the distance from Andrade.
Occasionally, Rigondeaux would throw a weak right hook, which would either miss or land with little power. It seems clear that Rigondeaux, for all his greatness, is mostly a one-armed fighter. He does next to nothing with his right other than using it for weak jabs and right hooks and as a measuring stick.
Near the end of the 1st, Andrade finally threw his first punch in the round, an awkward looking right uppercut that missed by a mile. It looked like a punch that an amateur would throw. I guess he was really frightened.
In the 2nd round, Rigondeaux continued to patiently pick Andrade apart with straight left hands. Andrade wanted Rigondeaux to pick up the pace of his attack, perhaps hoping to turn it into a brawl so that he could land some shots of his own.
However, Rigondeaux continued to fight with great patience and merely ignored Andrade’s facial and hand gestures for him to come at him. Near the end of the round, Andrade slipped while near the corner. The referee, possibly blinded by the action, mistakenly ruled it as a knockdown.
There were no punches that were thrown or landed at the time that Andrade slipped to the canvas. Rigondeaux then went after Andrade briefly, thinking that he had him hurt. Rigondeaux grabbed Andrade around the head with his right hand and began nailing him with left uppercuts while holding onto his head with his right hand.
The referee was incredibly slow in warning Rigondeaux about this tactic unfortunately and didn’t say anything until Rigondeaux had already nailed Andrade five or six times while holding onto his head. After the round, Andrade, looking as if he wasn’t all there, stood in his corner motioning to the crowds for some reason. It was hard to understand why he did this because he was getting totally dominated and not in any way competitive.
In the 3rd round, Rigondeaux continued to tag Andrade with one left hand after another. With little time to go in the round, Rigondeaux hit Andrade with a left hand to the midsection that sent Andrade down on the canvas. The fight was then stopped as Andrade was too hurt to get up. It wasn’t a really big punch but it looked as if Andrade wasn’t expecting it.
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Light welterweight prospect Felix Diaz (2-0, 2 KO’s) stopped Omar Brown (1-3) in the 1st round. Diaz, 25, a 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist for the Dominican Republic, wasted little time, immediately rushing out and attacking Brown, 32, with hard combinations.
Diaz caught Brown in the corner and hit him with a hard 1-2 combination that sent Brown collapsing on the ring ropes and almost falling down. The referee counted it as a knockdown because the ropes had prevented Brown from falling.
After the action resumed, Diaz tore into Brown, tagging him with eight straight shots to the head leading, ending with a left hand that sent Brown down face first. The referee immediately stopped the bout at this point.
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Unbeaten middleweight prospect Yordanis Despaigne (3-0, 2 KO’s) obliterated a badly over-matched Micky Scaraborough (4-1, 4 KO’s) in a 1st round TKO. Despaigne, 29, a 2004 Olympian for Cuba, started off hitting Scaraborough with straight left hands and driving him across the ring to the ropes.
Now with his back against the ropes, Scaraborough covered up as Despaigne rained punches down on him one after another. Somehow, Scaraborough got off the ropes and briefly fought in the center of the ring. However, Despaigne backed Scaraborough up against the ropes once again, this time keeping him there and blasting away at him with a ton of unanswered punches until referee Frank Santore Jr. stepped in and stopped the bout at 1:41 of the 1st round.
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Unbeaten light middleweight prospect Yudel Johnson (3-0, 1 KO’s) defeated Frankie Santos (17-8-4, 8 KO”s) by an eight round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 77-74, 79-73, 79-73. Johnson, another former Cuban amateur star, had his way with Santos, dominating almost every round of the fight with left hands.
Although not a big puncher, Johnson made up for it by using a lot of movement, counter punching and defense to keep Santos on the losing end in each round. It was rare for Santos to land more than five punches per rounds, as most of the time, Johnson would hit and then move away. He never kept hands up and seemed to be quite skilled as making Santos miss just by moving and twisting away from punches at the last second.