It would take a superman to walk into an unlevel playing field like this against a true elite like Lomachenko and walk away with the win?
Born of a social media beef, this fight between two-time Olympic gold medalists?the first such fight in the history of the pro ranks?was put together after feuding social media accounts had left no room BUT to put it together.
Cuban master boxer, Rigondeaux, is certainly no shrinking violet when it comes to looking for challenges and accepting them when they come. But since schooling Nonito Donaire in 2013, the 122 lb. champ has found it next to impossible to get big fights against big opposition. Stars like Leo Santa Cruz and Carl Frampton have pretty much come right out and said that they want nothing to do with the ?Jackal? and even Lomachenko?s people, when their fighter was campaigning at 126, were not all that eager to look in Rigondeaux?s direction.
He?s THAT good and that dangerous. Any shiny bandwagon speeding into Rigondeaux?s domain will emerge a wobbly, dented, rickety mess. And even in defeat?if he ever does get defeated?he could make a top level opponent look like a five-fight novice.
With just the slightest of shifts in angles and positioning of the feet, Rigondeaux effortlessly outboxes otherwise high-level battlers, who begin second-guessing themselves from the very first moment they swing for a chin, get only air, then get hammered with a counter that they never saw coming.
But while Rigondeaux is beating opposition with a keen boxing intellect and a genius-level mastery of angles, the Ukraine?s Vasyl Lomachenko is a master of a different sort.
Lomachenko is pure, fine-tuned athleticism?a raw talent so great that opposition seems to be moving in slow motion against him.
?Hi-Tech? can tilt and swerve and re-position himself in front of an opponent before the befuddled foe can even respond to the first move he made. He makes dominance look easy in much the same way a prime Roy Jones Jr. made it look easy against otherwise solid opposition.
Unlike the super-serious, stone-faced and stoic Rigondeaux, however, Lomachenko has a bit of a mean streak when it comes to his mastery. He taunts and mugs at overmatched prey struggling to keep up with the dynamo in front of them. He laughs at their inadequacies.
On paper, it would appear that Lomachenko has the advantage over Rigondeaux in a few key areas. He?ll be fighting the fight at 130, his natural weight, and asking Rigondeaux to move up two weight classes to take the challenge. He also has an eight-year advantage in age over the 37-year-old (who may actually be significantly older than his reported age).
There?s also the huge factor of this bout being on a Bob Arum card?a Bob Arum who seemed to be seething for quite some time after Rigondeaux, his one-time client, embarrassed promotional stablemate and ?next big thing? Nonito Donaire in a one-sided schooling. The Rigondeaux-Donaire fallout led to Rigondeaux leaving Arum?s Top Rank Promotions and produced about four years of public bad blood since then. It would be na?ve to think that Rigondeaux will get the benefit of any doubt when it comes to scoring in this Arum-promoted fight.
So, what should be a master class of skill and ability from two true elite-level players is not as pure as one would?ve liked it to be.
Actually, it would take a superman to walk into an unlevel playing field like this against a true elite like Lomachenko and walk away with the win. Put any other 122 lb. fighter in there against Lomachenko under the same conditions and there would be zero chance of emerging victorious. But Rigondeaux IS Superman and he has proven his character and his class, both as a man, literally fighting his way to freedom in the United States, and as a fighter. If anyone can pull off the impossible (or near impossible), he can.
And that?s why Lomachenko-Rigondeaux is still so appealing, even after one understands that the deck is stacked in Lomachenko?s favor.
It?s not often that we get two such talents matched up against one another these days without having to suffer through years of ?marination? via media manipulation. In just this one case, it may be alright to shut one?s critical inner voice a bit and enjoy the fight, if not necessarily the result.
There?ll be time for criticism and analysis later. For now, let?s just watch a stellar match-up for the sake of watching a stellar match-up.
