By Chris Williams: WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (13-0, 8 KO’s) put on a nice boxing clinic in defeating an over-matched Joseph Agbeko (29-5, 22 KO’s) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Rigondeaux won the fight by the scores 120-108, 120-108, 120-108. In other words, Rigondeaux won every round of the one-sided fight.
Agbeko initially tried to make a fight of it in the first couple of rounds, but when he figured out he was too slow to land, he went into a shell and didn’t seem to try and win. It just looked like Agbeko was trying to survive. He’d try to throw shots, but he wouldn’t throw enough of them and he didn’t attack Rigondeaux the way braver opponents have done in the past. With Agbeko not really attacking in a meaningful way, it quickly become really one-sided with Rigondeaux picking a timid looking Agbeko off with shots at will and standing there waiting for attacks that never came from Agbeko.
It’s not surprising that Rigondeaux won so easily, as Agbeko came into the fight having lost 3 out of his last five fights. You kind of wish that Bob Arum of Top Rank had found a better opponent than Agbeko because this fight had mismatch written all over it the moment that the fight was signed.
Agbeko had fought only once in the past 2 years coming into tonight’s fight, and it just looks like the only reason he got the fight was because he was well known, not because he had been doing anything with his career in the last two years.
I hope Arum finds someone actually good for Rigondeaux’s next fight because dragging out fighters with only 1 fight in two years to fight Rigondeaux is off putting. I’d rather have seen Nonito Donaire in the ring with Rigondeaux tonight, because at least it would have been somewhat entertaining due to Donaire’s huge size.
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In easily the most exciting fight on the card, junior middleweight James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KO’s) wore down and stopped previously unbeaten and highly hyped junior middleweight contender Glen Tapia (20-1, 12 KO’s) in the 6th round. Kirkland battered a badly beaten up and hurt Tapia with shots against the ropes for 6 rounds until the referee Steve Smoger halted the fight at 0:38 of the 6th round. Kirkland was able to get in a big left hook to the head just as Smoger was waiving off the bout, and the shot snapped Tapia’s putting him out on his feet.
Tapia didn’t look bad in the 1st round when he was moving around the ring and catching Kirkland with shots. However, Kirkland was able to cut off the ring on Tapia in the 2nd round and trap him against the ropes to land nonstop punches. What’s hard to understand is why Tapia stayed against the ropes for so long. It would seem to reason that he’d have been better off moving and/or staying in the center of the ring instead of letting Kirkland pound away on him along the ropes.
This was a big step up fro Tapia tonight, and as it turns out it was too big of a step up. He didn’t know what to do and he wasn’t following the instructions from his corner.
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Middleweight Matthew Macklin (30-5, 20 KO’s) had to struggle a lot harder than expected in beating previously unbeaten Lamar Russ (14-1, 7 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision. The final judges scores were 96-94, 97-93, 98-92. Macklin was hit a lot by the lanky 6’2″ Russ, and he problems with his height and reach. In the last three rounds, Russ was able to rally against a fading Macklin and nail him with quite a few good shots.
This performance was a very disappointing one for Macklin because the fight was a lot closer than two of the judges scored it. I had Macklin barely winning by a 96-94 score. It’s not a good sign that Macklin can’t even dominate a novice like Russ.
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Other fights on the card:
Matt Korobov TKO 9 Derek Edwards
Egor Mekhontsev TKO 3 Peter Cajagas
Jesse Hart TKO 1 Tyrell Hendrix
Toka Kahn Clary UD 6 Ramsey Luna
Julian Rodriguez UD 4 Ryan Picou
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