If John Riel Casimero doesn’t get the fight he wants in the first quarter of 2021, he could end up tangling with the division’s other marquee name.
And that’s going to be one hell of a fight for Casimero, the reigning World Boxing Organization bantamweight titlist.
With Naoya Inoue and Top Rank chief Bob Arum apparently not keen on rescheduling the Inoue-Casimero battle that should have taken place last April before the pandemic entered the picture, the Filipino’s camp is looking elsewhere.
The name that floated over the weekend was that of Cuba’s renowned champion Guillermo Rigondeaux.
You see, Rigondeaux, though 40, remains a major player in the 118-lb class.
He holds the World Boxing Association title and there are plans to put him in the same ring with Casimero in a two-belt showdown if Inoue and Arum continue to look the other way.
“He is a possibility,” acknowledged Casimero’s United States representative Sean Gibbons.
So, just how good is Rigondeaux?
Well, before turning professional in the US after his defection, Rigondeaux won two Olympic gold medals in 2000 and 2004, two world championships and three World Cups, a gold medal apiece in the Pan American and Central American and Caribbean Games and seven Cuban national titles.
Rigondeaux, nicknamed “The Jackal,” currently has a 20-1 win-loss record with 13 KOs, his lone loss coming at the hands of Vasyl Lomachenko, who admits his victory almost didn’t amount to anything because Rigondeaux jumped two weight classes.
Now, who has he fought?
His biggest victim so far is the accomplished Nonito Donaire, whom he easily beat when they faced off in 2013.
While he hasn’t really been in with the crème dela crème, his victory over Donaire is proof that he is one tough nut to crack.
Personally, style-wise, I would give Casimero a much better chance of upsetting Inoue.
Still, I am conflicted because Casimero is on the rise and Rigondeaux is at an age where he can grow actually old overnight.
One more thing: Casimero has paralyzing power and remember what he did to the usually hard-to-hit Zolani Tete last year when he dethroned the South African in Birmingham, England.
All Casimero needed was just one blow — a right to the temple — to scramble Tete’s faculties and turn his legs into rubber.
Casimero, holder of a 30-4 card with 21 KOs, has one-punch KO power and when a guy has that rare trait, you can never count him out.
Besides, Casimero, 31, has that personality and character that make him extremely confident of his abilities, something that is lacking even among the elite fighters of today.
He is somehow like Manny Pacquiao during a big fight: Cool, calm and collected.
And most importantly, Casimero, like Pacquiao, is locked and loaded.
