Guillermo Rigondeaux Vs Vasyl Lomachenko: A Boxing Writer’s Novel of Love Hoping the Fight Will Really Happen!
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By Travis “Novel” Fleming
Negotiations are underway for a legitimate super fight featuring a couple of the most talented fighters boxing has seen since Floyd Mayweather Jr rose to prominence. Renown boxing manager Gary Hyde has announced that he has accepted, in principal, an offer from manager Egis Klimas to stage a fight between his unified bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, 15-0, 10 KO’s, and Klimas’ WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko, 4-1, 2 KO’s.
It doesn’t get better than this. In the history of boxing there are only a handful of examples of fighters with this level of skill squaring off. These two are arguably the two greatest amateur fighters of all time, and both are two time Olympic gold medalists. With hundreds of amateur fights at the highest level, both fighters are experienced far beyond what their professional records’ suggest. As professionals, both were fast tracked to world title shots.
Cuba does not allow fighters to turn professional, so in order to do so Rigondeaux had to dangerously defect from his home country to chase professional glory and better provide for his family. He was favored to win his third Olympic gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but instead attempted to defect to turn professional while in Brazil representing Cuba at the 2007 Pan Am Games. He failed to show up for his scheduled bout at the games and was arrested three days later by Brazilian authorities for overstaying his visa, and subsequently sent back to Cuba where Fidel Castro removed him from the Cuban team and dubbed him a deserter.
With his failed defection came the realization that he was not allowed to represent Cuba at the Beijing Olympics to try and win his third consecutive gold medal. The best amateur fighter in the world was forced to sit on the shelf and suffer while he watched former teammates successfully defect and achieve success in the paid ranks. With his amateur boxing career on hold, and the lure of proving himself as one of the best fighters in the world as a professional, coupled with the lure of better providing for his impoverished family in the paid ranks, proving too strong to ignore, Rigondeaux once again made a dangerous attempt at defecting in 2009.
He was smuggled out of Cuba on a cramped boat with other defectors seeking a better life and landed in Miami where he signed a professional contract. He had his first professional bout in May of 2009, and reeled off six victories before beating former interim champion Ricardo Cordoba, 37-2-2, 23 KO’s, by split decision for the WBA interim super bantamweight title in November of 2010 on the Pay Per View undercard of Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito. As a champion after only seven pro fights, Rigondeaux made four successful defenses of his title before challenging the heavily favored Nonito Donaire, 31-1, 20 KO’s, in a unification bout with his WBA title and Donaire’s WBC title up for grabs. Donaire had a significant size advantage, was red hot coming off of winning fighter of the year for 2012, and was universally recognized as the number three pound for pound fighter in the world. In a virtuoso performance, Rigondeaux taught the heavily favored Donaire a boxing lesson en route to a dominating twelve round decision.
After just twelve fights, Rigondeaux was a unified champion, the king of his division, and ranked among the top pound for pound fighters in the world. He has since defended both titles three times, but due to his technical brilliance he has had trouble getting any of the bigger named fighters around his weight class to get in the ring with him. Despite holding two titles and being ranked as high as the number two pound for pound fighter in the world on many respectable lists, Rigondeaux has become the most avoided fighter in boxing, the puzzle no one wants to attempt to solve.
Vasyl Lomachenko lacks professional experience, but at five fights he’s actually more experienced than most with over twenty. He is perhaps THE greatest amateur boxer of all time with two Olympic golds for the Ukraine, several world amateur championships, and an absolutely ridiculous amateur record of 396 wins with only one defeat. That defeat came to Russian amateur stand out Albert Selimov and Lomachenko would avenge his only amateur blemish by beating Selimov twice in subsequent bouts, including eliminating Selimov in the first round at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. After capturing his second Olympic gold in London in 2012, Lomachenko was expected to turn pro and be fast tracked to a world title, but instead opted to join the semi pro World Series Of Boxing as a member of team Ukraine. He went 6-0 in the semi pro ranks and made the jump to the professional ranks in late 2013.
Lomachenko wanted to join former American Olympic Gold Medalist Pete Radamacher as the second fighter ever to challenge for a world title in his first pro fight, but wasn’t able to secure a title shot so instead he faced fringe contender Jose Ramirez, 25-3, 15 KO’s, in a bout scheduled for ten rounds. Ramirez is an unbelievable scalp for a man with no professional fights. While most amateur stand outs fight four rounders against guys with losing records, and don’t step up to the Ramirez level until well over a dozen fights, Lomachenko dared to be great right off the bat.
The risk paid off as Lomachenko knocked out the veteran Ramirez in the fourth round and earned himself a shot at three time champion Orlando Salido for the WBO featherweight championship in only his second fight! Salido came in over the featherweight limit so he could not win the belt, and Lomachenko’s team could have canceled the fight but chose to fight at a disadvantage anyways as the belt was still on the line for Vasyl and the prospect of winning a belt in only his second pro fight proved to great to pull out. Salido used this unfair weight advantage to bully Lomachenko with veteran rough house tactics that Lomachenko was not used to seeing in the amateur ranks. It was a brutal welcome to professional boxing against one of it’s more rugged rule benders and likely served as a lesson in what to expect foes can get away with as a pro. Lomachenko held his own, but ultimately lost a close decision to Salido, bringing his professional record to 1-1, 1 KO. Three months later, in June of 2014, Lomachenko would make history by challenging for his second world title in just his third pro fight when he took on the talented Gary Russell Jr, 24-0, 14 KO’s, for the same vacant WBO title he squared off against Salido for.
Lomachenko outclassed the speedy Russell, winning a competitive twelve round decision and became a world champion after only three fights! This performance would be given further credit in 2015 when Russell proved his quality by dominating and knocking out WBC champion Jhonny Gonzalez, 57-8, 48 KO’s, for his championship belt. Lomachenko would follow up the Russell win with two successful title defenses, including a ninth round knockout of Gamelier Rodriguez, 25-2-3, 17 KO’s, in his most recent fight this past May which was the official undercard for Mayweather vs Pacquiao, meaning that he was exposed to the largest audience in the history of the sport, and he impressed.
With a reputation building, he was being positioned to challenge featherweight kingpin Nicholas Walters, 26-0, 21 KO’s, for the lineal championship at 126 lbs, but Walters missed weight in his June title defense. Figuring Walters could no longer make 126 lbs, that left team Lomachenko searching elsewhere for a big fight. He’d already beaten current WBC champ Russell, and the other top featherweights were busy with scheduled fights, so he looked south to super bantamweight king Guillermo Rigondeaux who was in a desperate quest to land a significant bout while his entire weight class avoided him like the plague. That brings us to today.
Stylistically, both are incredible technicians with speed and respectable power. Lomachenko, as the bigger man, likely hits harder and certainly applies more pressure. Rigondeaux has the faster hands, he is better defensively and a better counter puncher. Both are quick with excellent footwork that compliment their respective styles. Both are deadly body punchers with solid ring acumens. As amateurs both are incredibly experienced, as a professional Rigondeaux has faced a much higher level of opposition, being pro for three years longer than Vasyl, so he’s more schooled in the veteran tricks and rough house tactics that don’t fly in the amateur ranks. Rigondeaux at 34, is quite old for a super bantamweight so Lomachenko definitely has youth on him, and 34 year old little guys can decline within the span of one fight. Can Lomachenko use his feet to cut off the ring, and use his size and strength to bully the smaller man down the stretch? Can Rigondeaux repeat his master class against Nonito Donaire by out slicking, out thinking and frustrating the young Ukrainian?
This is a 50-50 fight if there ever was one, and it’s going to be fought at a level of skill that won’t be paralleled in both combatants of a major fight for a long time. Both are masters of their own style, one is proven in the pro ranks but desperate for a big fight, while the other is hungry to prove his amateur greatness will translate into the professional ranks. Sign me up please!
According to Rigondeaux’s manager Gary Hyde, this mega fight is just one agreement away from becoming a reality. Rigondeaux is already quite small at super bantamweight where he is maxed out in weight at the advanced age of 34. Lomachenko is the much bigger man, being a decent sized featherweight, and at age 27, it appears that he will eventually fill out to become a full fledged lightweight. As a result of the size discrepancy between these amateur greats, there is an agreement in place to meet at a catchweight of 124 lbs which is the halfway point between both of their divisions. This could prove challenging to Lomachenko who is only getting bigger.
There is one other demand from team Rigondeaux that has yet to be agreed on and that’s a rehydration clause stating that on fight night Lomachenko cannot enter the ring over 135 lbs (the lightweight limit) as Rigondeaux will likely be well under the featherweight limit of 126 lbs, even on fight night. In this age of fighters blowing up overnight after weigh ins to enter the ring several weight classes higher as an advantage, team Rigondeaux want to ensure that their small super bantamweight isn’t going to be entering the ring against an elite fighter that has rehydrated to the size of a junior welterweight. This rehydration clause is a fair deal in my opinion, but it almost makes the catchweight pointless. Wouldn’t it make more sense to allow Lomachenko to weight in at featherweight so long as he enters the ring under the lightweight limit? I mean if Lomachenko’s fight night weight is the concern then the catchweight is completely unnecessary and only serves to cheapen this intriguing battle.
The catchweight would serve to try and weaken Lomachenko, and whether it’s successful in doing so or not, if Rigondeaux somehow beats the bigger Lomachenko then surely we’ll hear the excuse that it was due to the catchweight. For this reason, I hope team Rigondeaux renegotiate the terms to have the weigh in at 126 with a fair rehydration clause of 135 lbs which should please all parties involved and provide no significant advantage to either man.
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