By Chris Williams: WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (9-0, 7 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his newly won title on June 9th against volume puncher #14 WBA contender Teon Kennedy (17-1-2, 7 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The fight will get a lot of attention because it will take place on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley fight on HBO pay-per-view.

Rigondeaux, 31, defeated World Boxing Association champion Rico Ramos last January in a 6th round TKO. Rigondeaux really opened people’s eyes in that fight by putting Ramos down twice in the fight to get the stoppage. Rigondeaux’s body punching was out of this world, as he chopped Ramos in half with his powerful shots to the midsection. Ramos couldn’t take it, and fought defensively after getting dropped in the 1st round. It didn’t help him, though, as he was knocked down again in the 6th.

Rigondeaux was hoping to capitalize on the victory over Ramos by looking to get a unification match against the new WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire. However, Donaire took a beating in defeating former WBO champion Wilfredo Vazquez last February, and decided he wasn’t interested in facing the hard hitting counter punching Rigondeaux. Instead of facing the dangerous Cuban, Donaire had decided to fight the light hitting Cristian Mijares in July in a safe and very winnable fight for Donaire.

The 25-year-old Kennedy was recently beaten by Alejandro Lopez by a 12 round unanimous decision last August. Kennedy was getting lit up in that fight, and he made it easy for Lopez by leaving himself open so much while throwing punch after punch. In his last fight, Kennedy out-worked Christopher Martin, but had to settle for a 10 round draw because he kept getting hit with monstrous shots. That’s the problem for Kennedy. He doesn’t hit hard enough to get his opponents out of there, and he ends up taking big shots.

Rigondeaux will have tons of opportunities to take Kennedy out with body shots on June 9th, because Kennedy will be likely looking to throw between 80 to 100 punches per round. You can’t do that against a counter puncher like Rigondeaux without getting knocked out.