Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Daniel Rosas added to Uzcategui-Plant card on Jan.13

By Boxing News - 12/28/2018 - Comments

Image: Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Daniel Rosas added to Uzcategui-Plant card on Jan.13

By Chris Williams: Former WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo ‘The Jackal’ Rigondeaux (17-1, 11 KOs) will be fighting 29-year-old little known Mexican journeyman Daniel Rosas (21-4-1, 13 KOs) in a scheduled eight round fight at super featherweight on the undercard of IBF super middleweight champion Jose Uzcategui’s title defense against Caleb ‘Sweethands’ Plant (17-0, 10 KOs) on on Premier Boxing Champions on FS1 & FOX Deportes at the Microsoft Theater, in Los Angeles, California.

The 38-year-old Rigondeaux has been out of the ring for 12 months since quitting on his stool after the 6th round in his last fight against former WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko in December 2017. The two-time Olympic gold medalist Rigondeaux moved up two weight classes to take on Lomachenko without a catch-weight in that fight, and he never had the a real chance of winning due to the size disparity. Now Rigondeaux is going back to the same weight class that he lost to Lomachenko at super featherweight, and it doesn’t make much sense.

Rigondeaux, 5’4″, is too small for the top fighters in the 130 pound division like Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, Tevin Farmer, Miguel Berchelt, Alberto Machado and Masayuki Ito. However, Rigondeaux has the ideal opponent for him to beat in facing a lower level fighter in Rosas, who has lost two out of his last four fights in defeats to Willmank Canonico Brito (8-1-2, 7 KOs) and Jonathan Guzman (23-1, 22 KOs). Still, this could be a very hard fight for Rigondeaux due to the size, power and youth of Rosas. Rigondeaux does not belong at super featherweight, and this fight could further cement that fact. There has to be a method to the madness for Rigondeaux’s management in putting him in with Rosas. They likely saw Rosas’ recent 3rd round knockout loss to Brito, and concluded that Rigondeaux can do the same thing against. Brito is a super featherweight as well, and even though he may not be a world beater, he’s clearly got some pop in his punches with his 58% KO percentage.

This would be a disaster waiting to happen if Rigondeaux goes after any of the world champions at super featherweight. It doesn’t take a talented fighter like Lomachenko to squash Rigondeaux at 130. You can argue that any of the elite fighters in the super featherweight division would do the job on him on size alone. Now that Lomachenko has moved up to lightweight to fight guys his own size, he’s being exposed lately. What Lomachenko did in beating Rigondeaux wasn’t due to talent. It was due to his big size advantage. Rigondeaux isn’t going to beat any of the top tier super featherweights. He can probably beat a limited fighter like Rosas though, but not the top guys. If Rigondeaux is going to stubbornly stick it out at 130, hoping to show the boxing world that his loss to Lomachenko was just an aberration, then he could be in for a disappointment. Rigondeaux lost to Lomachenko because had no business fighting at super featherweight against a guy with a 15 pound weight advantage over him. We might see the same thing when Rigondeaux gets inside the ring with Rosas, which is why it’s hard to understand the rationale for the Cuban talent to even be taking the risk of facing someone so much bigger than himself.

Uzcategui (28-2, 23 KOs) will be making his first defense of his IBF 168 lb title against #2 IBF Plant. While some boxing fans believe the 26-year-old Plant has the talent to defeat Uzcategui, many of them don’t. They note the lack of punching power that Plant has, and the fact that he’s not looked that great in some of his fights. It’s hard to predict how Plant will performance against Uzcategui, as he’s not fought good enough opposition to get a gauge of his actual talent. Plant’s best wins have come against Rogelio Medina, Thomas Awimbono and Tyrone Brunson. Those are not the cream of the super middleweight division. Plant has been matched carefully by his management, and now he’s about to fight someone with the kind of punching power that could give him major problems.