By Scott Gilfoid: At today’s WBO convention, Guillermo Rigondeaux (15-0, 10 KOs) was stripped of his WBO title for failing to defend it in a timely manner. Rigondeaux, 35, hasn’t defended his WBO title since last December when he beat Hisashi Amagasa by an 11th round knockout.
It’s hard to blame Rigondeaux for not defending the belt, because the top fighters in the division have shown no interest in fighting him. Rigondeaux wants to face the likes of Scott Quigg, Carl Frampton and Nonito Donaire, but getting them to agree to a fight with him is like pulling teeth.
#1 WBO Cesar Juarez and #2 WBO Nonito Donaire are expected to fight for Rigondeaux’s WBO super bantamweight title in the near future.
Ever since Rigondeaux’s one-sided 12 round decision win over Donaire in 2013, none of the quality fighters has wanted to get into the ring with him.
Rigondeaux recently wanted to face WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko but not surprisingly the negotiations went nowhere. Without a catch-weight, Rigondeaux likely would have been out-weight by 10-15 pounds by Lomachenko. It would have put Rigondeaux at a huge disadvantage weigh-wise if he’d taken that fight.
At 35, Rigondeaux is in the same situation as talented fighters like Gennady Golovkin is. He’s just too good for his own good, and it makes it pretty much impossible for him to get the fighters with built in fan bases like Frampton and Quigg to agree to fight him. You have to wonder whether Rigondeaux would be able to build up a huge fan base overnight if he immigrated to the UK. It would be interesting to see.
“At convention today, WBO stripped inactive Guillermo Rigondeaux of 122 title. #boxing,” Dan Rafael said on his Twitter. “I’m told by somebody at the WBO convention that Rigo’s “promoter” Caribe was not even there to argue on his behalf. To fill now-vacant WBO 122 it’ll be Donaire vs. Cesar Juarez most likely. Rigo promoter presented arguments on his behalf in his show cause response. The Committee wasn’t swayed. Say what you want but World Boxing Org followed its rules in stripping Rigo. @Paco Valcarcel. Rigo has been a pro for 6 1/2 years. Has 15 fights and one big win. Hey Carl Moretti, if you were still Rigo’ promoter would the strippage still have occurred????????????????? #rigolution.”
Rigondeaux’s best years are going by without him fighting any interesting fights. He still has his WBA super bantamweight title in his possession, but if he doesn’t get busy soon, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get stripped of that title too. In the big scheme of things, it might be in Rigondeaux’s best intrest to vacate his WBA title and then get ranked by the IBF or WBA high so that he can force the likes of Quigg or Frampton to face him once he becomes their mandatory challenger.
Hopefully they wouldn’t vacate the title in order to avoid having to face Rigondeaux. I really hate to say it but that’s exactly what I see happening. I can’t see Quigg or Frampton ever agreeing to fight Rigondeaux until he starts showing signs of being totally shot. Since Rigondeaux is still looking good right now, I don’t think he has a prayer of getting either of those two fighters to face him.
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