It’s been a little over two months since Guillermo Rigondeaux stepped up two weight classes to fight Vasyl Lomachenko, and lost by retiring on his stool after the sixth round. Rigondeaux didn’t stand a chance against Lomachenko, and besides the first round, which was fairly even, Lomachenko’s overal height, weight and technique was too much for Rigondeaux to overcome. Rigondeaux decided not to continue after the sixth round, complaining of an injured left hand. It was then announced that he suffered a severe hand contusion. It was Guillermo’s first professional loss and apparently, he hasn’t taken it well.
Prior to the fight being made, Rigondeaux’s twitter account was doing an awful lot of yapping. Publicly calling out Vasyl Lomachenko, his manager Egis Kilmas and his promoter Bob Arum. Previously, when Lomachenko was fighting at 126 pounds, Top Rank and Rigondeaux’s promoter Roc Nation Sports and Caribe Promotions tried to hash out a deal. Unfortunately, Rigondeaux felt that Top Rank’s offer of $500 thousand wasn’t enough for a fight, and complained of wanting a catch weight at 124 pounds. Rigondeaux was fighting at junior feather weight (122 pounds).
However, despite failing to get any other notable opponents since their first round of negotiations, Rigondeaux was now publicly willing to move up junior lightweight (130 pounds) to secure the fight. Second round of negotiations, Rigondeaux gave up more weight, and less money ($400 thousand) this time around, just to prove to the world that he would be able to beat Lomachenko. Arum has received criticism for some of the statements he’s made over Rigondeaux. But perhaps the blame should be put on Rigondeaux’s team that he hand picked.
Guillermo Rigondeaux got his biggest opportunity in his professional career, when he faced one of Top Rank’s big stars in Nonito Donaire. Rigondeaux out boxed Donaire and took his belt in the process of doing so. It was great accomplishment for Rigondeaux, especially since Donaire was on many people’s top 10 pound for pound lists. Rigondeaux got the attention he needed, however it came with some consequences. Rigondeaux’s performance over Donaire, as dominant as it was, lacked an exciting style to please the American audience. Nevertheless, Top Rank put Rigondeaux on a HBO main event against a respectable opponent in Jospeh Agbeko.
This was an opportunity for Rigondeaux to flourish into a potential star. However, the main event that was televised on HBO did a mere 550 thousand views. Which is awful numbers for a main event on a big premium network like HBO. The co main event in that card did 718 thousand views, which most saw James Kirkland and Glen Tapia go to war. Top Rank representatives saw many people filing out of the stadium when Rigondeaux was fighting as well. Guillermo does not have an exciting and appealing style for most fans. Fans voiced their displeasure by leaving the stadium and turning off the television.
Bob Arum had a dilemma. He knew he had a special talent in Guillermo Rigondeaux, but with HBO telling Arum that they didn’t want Rigondeaux back on their network, he was going to have to resort in other ways to promote and show Rigondeaux. The following year, in the summer, Arum put Rigondeaux on a undercard fight in Macau, China to fight Anusorn Yotjan. After that fight, the contract with Top Rank and Rigondeaux was finished, and with no where to put Rigondeaux in any appropriate platform, Arum decided not to seek out a contract extension.
Under Top Rank, Rigondeaux was groomed in several occasions by being put on pay-per-view Top Rank undercards. Exposure was there, when a few of those times were held by Manny Pacquiao cards. Rigondeaux was placed on two HBO cards, against Donaire and Agbeko. The relationship with Rigondeaux and Top Rank/HBO didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean the promoter was at fault. Since leaving Top Rank, Rigondeaux signed with Roc Nation Sports, and was not televised as a main event attraction in the United States. He fought in Japan, once in the United Kingdom, and was in several HBO pay-per-view undercards that headlined Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev. Both cards didn’t do very much much buys.
Bob Arum put together a plan for Rigondeaux, the plan failed due to Rigondeaux’s lack of exciting style, and failure to self promote himself. Guys like Floyd Mayweather didn’t have an overwhelmingly exciting style, but he was able to promote himself due to his personality. Rigondeaux’s punch out put in each round is extremely low, and rarely makes risks in fights to go for knockouts. Rigondeaux doesn’t have the personality to sell tickets, and makes no attempt to speak English. With all those key factors, it’s obvious to why Rigondeaux wasn’t a bigger star in the United States.
In the United States, two things sell. Personality, and a fighters style in the ring. If you have both, it’s even better. Rigondeaux could’ve possibly became a bigger attraction, if he had a personality similar to Ricardo Mayorga. Mayorga didn’t speak any English, but grabbed fans attention by trash talking his way into fights and press conferences. Unfortunately for Rigondeaux, the only trash talking he really did was on social media, trying to secure a fight with Vasyl Lomachenko.
Perhaps one of the reasons why he wasn’t able to secure bigger fights, was possibly his unreasonable asking price for fights. Rigondeaux stated that he should’ve gotten more than $750 thousand (which was the amount he was paid under Top Rank when fought Nonito Donaire). But the business size would tell otherwise. Rigondeaux had not headlined a main event fight and had not fought on a major U.S. television network since being with Top Rank. There was no extra revenue coming in for him to even be able to pay out Rigondeaux’s desired dollar amount. Meanwhile, Lomachenko was regularly fighting on HBO, creating a fan base, and promoting himself by learning the English language and doing more interviews in English since coming to the states in 2014.
Rigondeaux signed with Roc Nation, a questionable move, considering they had not been known to really be go getters, in terms of promoting. Their business model is simple to them. Because they’re owned by Jay-Z, fighters should come to them for money, and fans should automatically follow the fighters they sign. Roc Nation Sports signed Miguel Cotto to a huge deal worth 3 fights and $50 million. Cotto was not making that much in recent fights, and was simply over paid by Roc Nation to create notoriety to have other fighters sign with them. However, in boxing, you have to do more than just simply sign fighters. This isn’t the NFL, MLB or NBA, more work needs to be done to expand the brand of other fighters who aren’t pay-per-view attractions. It’s something Roc Nation failed to do since becoming a promotional company as well.
All the listed factors above are why Rigondeaux’s career did not pan out the way he’d like. Since losing the Lomachenko fight, there has not been one single tweet from Rigondeaux’s account. It’s still up in the air on whether or not Rigondeaux will return in the ring. Perhaps he was simply humiliated with how things turned out by being out classed by Lomachenko. But his silence remains questionable and ironic, considering all the trash talking he did leading up to the fight. Rigondeaux is still undefeated in his own weight class, and should not be defined as bust. There’s no shame to losing to a fighter that’s two weight above your own.
Rigondeaux didn’t win any extra fans in the Lomachenko fight either. He rarely threw more than 15 punches a round, and did almost nothing to win a round in that fight. He quit on his stool, due to a bruised left hand. Guillermo was criticized by many, especially his opponent. Lomachenko had fought Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo with basically one hand, for half of the tail end of that fight. If Rigondeaux does return, it’ll almost be close to impossible for him to secure a main event date with a major network. The best thing that came out of the Lomachenko fight, is that it peaked at 2.1 million views on ESPN. Rigondeaux needs to either pick better people to manage the rest of his career, or look hard into the mirror and make en effort to promote himself better. However, with him being 37 years of age, those days just may as well be behind him.
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