Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Liborio Solis on Dec.7 on SHOWTIME

By Boxing News - 10/01/2019 - Comments

By Allan Fox: Guillermo “El Chacal” Rigondeaux will be fighting Liborio Solis for the vacant WBA super bantamweight title on December 7. It’s believed that the Rigondeaux vs. Solis fight will be on the Showtime undercard of Jermall Charlo vs. Dennis Hogan fight. Rigondeaux-Solis will likely be the co-feature bout on the card.

Rigondeaux & Solis aren’t ranked in the WBA’s top 15

In an unusual move, the WBA will have the 39-year-old Rigondeaux and 37-year-old Solis (30-5-1, 14 KOs) battling for their vacant WBA super bantamweight title despite the fact that neither fighter is ranked in the top 15 by the organization. In fact, neither guy is ranked in the top tier by any of the four sanctioning bodies. It’s unknown hat the rationale is for the WBA to have two unranked fighters competing for their regular super bantamweight title, as there are a lot of contenders that should be given the opportunity.

Here are the WBA’s top 15 at super bantamweight:

Ronny Rios – WBA gold champ

1. Brandon Figueroa
2. Murodjon Akhmadaliev
3. Yukinori Oguni
4. Alexander Mejia
5. Leonardo Baez
6. Lorenzo Parra Garcia
7. Giovanny Gutierrez
8. Azat Hovhannisyan
9. Diego De la Hoya
10. Maikol Beaumont
11. Ye Joon Kim
12. Stephen Fulton
13. Neslan Machado
14. Franklin Manzanilla
15. Marcus Bates

The World Boxing Association currently already has a world champion at 122 in Daniel Roman, and they also have an interim belt holder in Brandon Figueroa. To top it off, the WBA also has a Gold super bantamweight champion in Ronny Rios.  Rigondeaux vs. Solis will have the WBA ‘regular’ 122-pound title on the line. Roman will be elevated to WBA Super World 122-lb champion,

Former WBA/WBO 122-lb champion Rigondeaux (19-1, 13 KOs) has won his last two fights since suffering a 6th round injury stoppage loss to Vasiliy Lomachenko in December 2017. That was a horrible fight for Rigondeaux, who moved up two weight classes to challenge Lomachenko for his WBO super featherweight title.

There was no catchweight given to Rigondeaux. For that reason, Lomachenko shot himself in the foot with a lot of boxing fans, who didn’t give him credit for his win over Rigondeaux due to the absence of a catch-weight. Since that loss, Rigondeaux has beaten Julio Ceja and Giovanni Delgado.

Rigondeaux taking safe route to world title

Fighting former time world title challenger Solis gives the two-time Cuban Olympic gold medalist Rigondeaux an excellent shot at winning a world title late in his career. Although a lot of boxing fans would love to see Rigondeaux challenge IBF/WBA champ Daniel Roman, WBC champion Rey Vargas or WBO titlist  Emanuel Navarrete, those would be bad match-ups for the 40-ish Guillermo.

Rigondeaux given a golden opportunity to win WBA title

The WBA is throwing Rigondeaux a bone in clearing out there regular super bantamweight title for him to fight for it against Solis. It’s a touching gesture by the WBA, as Rigondeaux likely wouldn’t be capable of winning a world title at this stage in his career if he had to go through one of the aforementioned champions at 122. Those guys hit too hard, and they’re a lot younger than the 39-year-old Rigondeaux.

Solis has had some tough luck in recent years in losing a HIGHLY controversial 12 round unanimous decision to former WBA World bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell in November 2016 in Monte Carlos. Solis appeared to win an easy decision, but the judges gave it to McDonnell by the scores 115-113, 117-111 and 116-112.

Boxing News 24 had Solis winning an easy decision. He totally outclassed McDonnell. In the rematch a year later, the fight was halted after 3 round and ruled a no decision after McDonnell suffered a cut left eye from a clash of heads.