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Philippines, 24 Feb 2026 |
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Casimero Keeps WBO Title in a Boring Non-Fight By Ed de la Vega, DDS PhilBoxing.com Sun, 15 Aug 2021  Filipino WBO bantamweight champion, John Riel Casimero, true to his boast held off the Cuban spitfire, Guillermo “El Chacal” Rigondeaux of Cuba. After a boring and uneventful 12 rounds at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, Casimero was awarded the fight. I say, “awarded” because (a) there was no fight! How can one call it a fight when both fighters hardly landed a combined under 100 punches for the whole 12 rounds? Amateur boxers under 10 years old throw more punches than that in a fight! Rigondeaux ran and Casimero chased him around sometimes, both hardly throwing a punch! (b) Rigondeaux did not do enough as a challenger. Casimero predicted that he would knock out Rigondeaux in three rounds and retire him. “The fight will be easy”, he said. But it was far from being easy unless he can say that running a marathon is easy. And certainly not close to his prediction of “three rounds and the Cuban would be done.” The Cuban, in spite of his age (40 years old at fight time) still had plenty of gas in his tank and it carried him all through the fight. The fight could have easily gone his way if only he decided to throw a punch more often. In fact, even if he hardly did anything, one judge thought he did and gave him the fight (115-113). But the other two overruled him, 117-111 and 116-112 in favor of Casimero. With the Casimero victory, it is now up to Promoters Tom Brown and Sean Gibbons to work their magic and put together a really huge fight between Casimero and Naoya Inoue of Japan. If Casimero wins, then he can fight Nonito Donaire Jr. for a true All Filipino Unification Fight. There will be no doubt; PBC and ShowTime would grab both shows. If Casimero beats Inoue, which I think will be difficult at best, then a showdown with Donaire will be a great fight. Donaire may consider the fight more seriously because then Casimero will have two belts. It will also allow the boxing world, particularly the Filipino fans, to see how far Casimero can carry his boast and how aggressively will Donaire defend his wife’s honor that was allegedly tainted by some words spoken by Casimero. But no matter how it’s cut, a Donaire vs. Casimero will be a humdinger! It will be less about money but more about honor and pride- the making of a great fight! A Donaire-Casimero fight will do well if set at the same venue, Dignity Health Sports Center at Carson, California where hundreds of Filipinos reside and /or work. Plus it is practically just an hour away from LA where more Pinoys are located. But they have to market it much better to the Pinoy market than they did the Casimero-Rigondeaux. More importantly, it will seal the fact that now Filipino boxing has finally come to age. It is no longer taboo to match two Filipino world-boxing champions from different fight organizations, in this case the WBO (Casimero) and the WBC (Donaire Jr). and unify the belts. Let the negotiations begin! Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.  |
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