By Chris Williams: WBO bantamweight champion John Riel Casimero won a horrendous 12 round split decision over Guillermo Rigondeaux in a clear robbery on Saturday night in their headliner at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
John Riel looked terribly uncoordinated and couldn’t land anything on the more talented athletic Rigondeaux. The difference in talent between the two fighters was incredible.
Casimero looked absolutely dreadful from start to finish, using missing nonstop with his shots, and resorting to fouling at times to try and land shots. Chris Williams had Rigondeaux winning 11 rounds to 1.
Rigondeaux shut Casimero’s offense down entirely, limiting him to single digits in punches landed per round.
What’s difficult to understand is how Casimero was given the victory by two of the judges when he literally was unable to connect with more than one or two solid shots each round.
WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford had Rigondeaux winning the fight, as he had Rigo winning rounds that weren’t even close.
Casimero couldn’t lay a glove on Rigondeaux
Indeed, Casimero proved woefully inept at cutting off the ring to trap Rigondeaux into having a brawl with him. That’s what Casimero wanted/needed for him to have a chance of winning, and he failed due to his slow feet and lack of athleticism.
Casimero was given a highly controversial victory after missing with almost every shot he threw in the fight, as he was BADLY outboxed by the highly skilled Rigondeaux (20-2, 13 KOs.
Two judges gave it to the 32-year-old Casimero by the scores 117-111, 116-112, while the third judge had it for Rigondeaux 115-113. Chris Williams scored the fight 119-109 for Rigondeaux.
The only round that he gave to Casimero was when he landed a good shot that briefly stunned Rigondeaux. However, when Casimero tried to take advantage of Rigondeaux being hurt, he spoiled his efforts by hitting the talented Cuban with rabbit punches to the back of his head.
The victory for Casimero moves him past Rigondeaux to a potential fight with WBC 118-lb champion Nonito Donaire or IBF/WBA champion Naoya ‘Monster’ Inoue.
One of those guys will likely be next, but necessarily. If Casimero trash talks too much, he’ll wind up with neither of those fighters.
Those guys are on another level in terms of popularity worldwide, and they may not want to deal with three months of listening to Casimero talk mess about them. If Casimero wants fights against Donaire and Inoue, he’s going to have to approach them differently.
Crawford had Rigondeaux beating Casimero
“IDk what they are talking about @RigoElChacal305 [Rigondeaux] is winning this fight hands down it’s not even close. Wow, that’s crazy, smh,” said WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford on Twitter in reacting to the Casimero vs. Rigondeaux results.
“He won” according to the judges, that is fine by me. Boxing has never been fair to me at the professional level.
But he is no Pacquiao and my chin is still on my head.— Guillermo Rigondeaux (@RigoElChacal305) August 15, 2021
Easily the best round of the fight for Casimero was in the first, in which he caught Rigondeaux with a nice shot when he was against the ropes.
Unfortunately, those efforts were spoiled by Casimero, who tagged Rigondeaux with a rabbit punch to the back of the head, causing him to slip to a knee.
SHOCKINGLY, while Rigondeaux was down, Casimero continued to throw punches at him. It was blatant, and surprisingly the referee didn’t penalize Casimero for the fouling, as he’d basically done a double foul with the rabbit punch to start things off, followed by punching Rigondeaux while he was down.
I mean, the referee could have disqualified Casimero at that point, and he would have been in the right.
Later in the fight, Casimero put Rigondeaux in a headlock in the sixth and nailed him with repeated blows to the head. Again, the referee gave Casimero a huge break by not penalizing or disqualifying him for the clear fouls.
At the very least, Casimero should have been penalized a point for the holding and hitting.
Casimero’s promoter wants Rigondeaux to retire
“Maybe he’s a nice person, but he needs to quit boxing,” said MP Promotions president Sean Gibbons to Fighthype about his views on Rigondeaux after the fight.
“He needs to absolutely quit. This is what people disliked about him earlier in his career. This isn’t boxing; this is an embarrassment. To get paid to run like you stole something.
“Casimero was here to fight, to make the fight. This guy [Rigondeaux] wouldn’t stop for one second. I’ve been in boxing for 35 years. It’s the most horrendous evening I’ve ever had in the sport. It was terrible,” said Gibbons, the promoter for Casimero.
“I was a little surprised,” said Gibbons about the fight bring ruled a 12 round split decision for Casimero. “I don’t know what [judge] Tim Cheatham was looking at, but he needs to go back and figure out how to score a fight because he was horrible tonight,” said a bitter Gibbons.
“You don’t win fights on your back foot, running for your life. Casimero buzzed Rigondeaux in the first round. In my 35 years of boxing, that was the most embarrassing fight I’ve ever seen.
“It didn’t happen because of this man. It happened because of Guillermo Rigondeaux. I don’t even know how the guy can walk around and say he was in a fight because he was horrible,” Gibbons said.
If anything, Gibbons should be angry with his own fighter Casimero for being so inept at cutting off the ring and lacking the punch accuracy to land shots. Chris Williams hates to say it, but Casimero looked like an uncoordinated fighter last Saturday.
Rigondeaux was landing his shots with laser-like precision, taking advantage of Casimero’s primitive wild-man fighting style, embarrassing him.
Gibbons on a rant about Rigondeaux’s boxing
“I was speechless when I heard ‘split decision.’ I almost fell out of my freaking ring,” said Gibbons. “This guy came to fight; he was throwing punches.
“The guy [Rigondeaux] was running for his life. The referee did a horrible job. The referee should have said, ‘Stop.
“Fight, or I’m taking points.’ It’s a f**** joke,” said Gibbons in failing to understand the art of the sweet science. “He never stopped. The guys probably still running to the hotel right now.
“Anybody that wants to fight, please, let’s go. He’s the WBO champ. If it’s Donaire or Inoue, at least we know those guys have balls. Here’s the thing.
“His [Rigondeaux] Twitter account talked a lot of s***, but he didn’t back it up. So whoever on his Twitter account needs to check with him next time because we thought the guy on Twitter was coming to fight.
“He was talking all this blah-blah-blah, but someone needs to check who does his Twitter because I know it’s not him,” said Gibbons on Rigondeaux’s Twitter account.
Why should the referee have warned Rigondeaux to stop moving and throw more punches when he was still throwing shots? I’m at a loss in trying to understand where Gibbons is coming from with his comments.
I mean, is there a rule in boxing that fighters MUST be stationary to help out their less talented, uncoordinated opponents to be able to land shots against them?
Why would Rigondeaux have to be stationary for a slow-footed, badly missing Casimero to help him be more competitive?
Casimero wants Donaire next
“My target for my promoters is first Rigondeaux, finished, finito, second is Donaire, and then Inoue,” said Casimero in who he wants next. “I know that’s Rigondeaux’s style [of boxing]. I respect Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympian.”
“I know Rigondeaux would always run, a very boring fighter, but I would do my best to knock him out.
I know Rigondeaux would always run, but I’m surprised that he is always running,” said Casimero at the post-fight press conference in complaining about Rigondeaux.
“My target is to knock him out, but it’s hard to knock him out because he’s always run, Rigondeaux. I respect the judges, and that’s why it’s a decision, but I do my best to knock him out,” said Casimero.