Vasyl Lomachenko defeats Guillermo Rigondeaux – Results

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: In a fight between Olympic gold medalists, Vasyl Lomachenko used his huge size advantage to dominate the much smaller and lighter looking Guillermo Rigondeaux (17-1, 11 KOs) in halting him at the end of the 6th round on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The official reason for the end of the fight was an injury to Rigondeaux’s left hand. He hurt his hand and didn’t wish to continue. Things were going badly for Rigondeaux well before the 6th round though, as he wouldn’t pull the trigger on his punches. After a good 1st round in which Rigondeaux landed a number of nice lefts and rights, he stopped punching from that point on. If the injury occurred, it might have taken place in the 1st or 2nd round.

When the two fighters came inside the ring at the start of the fight, it was shocking how much bigger Lomachenko looked compared to Rigondeaux. Earlier in the day Lomachenko and Rigondeaux had weighed in for the fight day weigh-in, which was part of the contract. Lomachenko weighed in at 137.4 pounds and Rigondeaux at 129. Lomachenko looked like he weighed 145 lbs. tonight inside the ring, whereas Rigondeaux looked no bigger than 129. That makes sense for Rigondeaux, because he only rehydrates to 126 for his fights at 122. If Lomachenko did rehydrate to 145, then he had a 16 pound weight advantage tonight. Rigondeaux was never going to beat Lomachenko giving away that much weight, especially with an injured left hand.

Without Rigondeaux being able to use his left hand, all he could do is jab with his right hand and hold. The holding was never going to work for Rigondeaux to win the fight. All he could do by holding was stall out the fight, which is what it looked like Rigondeaux was doing.

The way Rigondeaux fought in round 1 and 2 was entirely different. Rigondeaux went from dominating Lomachenko in the 1st round to not throwing punches at all in the 2nd round. Since Rigondeaux’s main weapon is his left hand, once he suffered an injury to that hand, he had no chance to win the fight.

In round 3, Lomachenko was the only one that was throwing shots. Rigondeaux threw almost no punches in the round. Rigondeaux did a lot of bending below the waist in the round. Lomachenko took advantage of his by hitting him with tapping right hands to the head. Lomachenko wasn’t trying to load up when Rigondeaux was bent over. He was just hitting him repeatedly with speedy, tapping shots.

The Lomachenko vs. Rigondeaux fight was televised on ESPN, and it failed to live up to the high expectations. It was hard on the eyes to watch this boring affair. Lomachenko was just as boring as Rigondeaux. They were both doing next to nothing. Lomachenko was largely throwing pity-pat shots, grappling in the clinches, hitting behind the head and on the break, and hitting after the bell. Lomachenko got away with murder in terms of fouling in the fight. Of all the fouls that Lomachenko committed in the fight, he wasn’t docked a point. It was Rigondeaux who lost a point in getting docked 1 point for holding in the 6th by referee Steve Willis.

Some boxing fans think Rigondeaux was faking his left hand injury. I don’t believe for a second Rigondeaux faked the injury. If you saw how effective Rigondeaux was in round 1 in nailing Lomachenko repeatedly with left hands to the head, there’s no way the Cuban star would stop throwing punches completely with his left hand for the remainder of the fight. It had to have been an injury to Rigondeaux’s left hand for him to stop throwing punches.