By Dan Ambrose: Although WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (10-0, 8 KO’s) would like to get bigger fights against the likes of IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire and/or WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares, he’s going to have to settle for facing 2nd tier fighter Robert Marroquin (22-1, 15 KO’s) on September 15th at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The fight, such as it is, can really help Rigondeaux’s career but only if he really impresses by either knocking Marroquin out or beating him by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision. Rigondeaux will be helped if Marroquin looks good in terms of talent, because it won’t help Rigondeaux if it looks like he’s beating up on another mediocre fighter.

Rigondeaux’s last two fights against Teon Kennedy and Rico Ramos weren’t fights against weak opposition. Those were two quality fighters that fought their hearts out, but who didn’t have the talent to compete with the much more talented Rigondeaux. So in a way boxing fans could get a warped picture of how good Marroquin is as an opponent for Rigondeaux if he gets beaten too easy. The only way of knowing how truly great Rigondeaux is will be after some time has gone by and we get to see where Marroquin ends up. If he moves on and eventually wins a title, Rigondeaux will look a lot better for having dominated him.

Rigondeaux wants to become a big star in the division, but the problem is that there’s only a tiny amount of top fighters in the 122 pound division, and getting some of them to agree to fight Rigondeaux has proven all but impossible. It’s hard to become more popular when Rigondeaux can’t get fights against the top guys, Donaire and Mares. For Rigondeaux to land a fight against either one of those guys it’s going to take a lot of luck, and it may not happen until Rigondeaux has aged more to the point where he’s not as dangerous as he is right now.

Marroquin, 22, is perfect for Rigondeaux in that he likes to slug, he’s talent and he comes forward all the time. Marroquin will probably look to change his style for this fight in order to keep from getting hit with Rigondeaux’s hard crippling body shots, but it’s going to be tough for Marroquin to fight his own naturally slugging instincts. That’s what he does is slug and if you take him out of that game and tell him to try and box for 12 rounds against a slugger like Rigondeaux then it becomes really difficult. Marroquin isn’t going to be able to beat Rigondeaux by trying to out-box him, but it may be his only chance of trying to keep from getting knocked out. If he slugs with Rigondeaux he’s going to get knocked out.