Cuban boxer Guillermo Rigondeaux loses fight against Filipino fighter John Riel Casimero

August 15, 2021

In Saturday's bantamweight title fight for the World Boxing Organization, it would not be incorrect to suggest that defending champion John Riel Casimero had the luck of retaining his belt against former unified 122-pound champion Guillermo Rigondeaux. Thus, in a nutshell, the frustrating career of the 40-year-old Cuban fighter is summed up in one night.

Rigondeaux is considered one of the best amateur boxers in the history of the sport. His professional career, however, has been a frustrating film of missed opportunities despite a largely brilliant record that fell to 20-2. He has long been his own worst enemy from the standpoint of not throwing enough punches, which has led to him being dropped, and sometimes frozen out, by both promoters and networks.

The fight against Casimero was no different from that perspective, as Rigondeaux allowed his Filipino opponent to out-land him by a margin of 47-44.

Saturday night in Carson, California, the veteran Cuban fought on his own terms. He struck when he wanted to. But Rigondeaux certainly did not win over the crowd at Dignity Health Sports Park. And more importantly, he did not win the favor of the judges.

Casimero retained his WBO bantamweight belt in a split decision victory, 116-112, 113-115, 117-111. The one who pressed the action was ultimately rewarded.

"I was focused on the knockout, but Rigondeaux always runs," Casimero said in his post-fight interview on Showtime. "Rigondeaux always runs. No fights."

It was a historically boring fight. The 91 combined landed punches were the lowest for a 12-round fight in CompuBox history. Neither fighter landed more than seven punches in a round.

From the start, it had all the trappings of an ugly fight. Casimero (31-4, 21 KOs) was warned in the first round after he struck Rigondeaux (20-2, 13 KOs) on the back of the head and then while he was on the canvas recovering from a slip.

Rigondeaux had some success with a pair of consecutive left hands in the second round. By the third round, the crowd had seen enough. Boos began to ring out throughout the arena as Rigondeaux continued circling around the ring. The 32-year-old Casimero even stood in the middle at several moments asking the Cuban Olympic champion to engage.

Rigondeaux was content to slide to his right while Casimero backed away with left hooks that cut through the air. After such an occurrence in the seventh round, Rigondeaux smiled, shook his head up and down, and kicked his heels, a happy bullfighter with his poor direction. In his mind, the strategy was working. He thought his 44 punches were enough to show his dominance over Casimero, who connected on only 15.8% of his 297 punches and landed on only six of 130 punches.

"That is the necessary amount of punches I needed to win this fight," said Rigondeaux. But the fears of Rigondeaux's trainer, Ronnie Shields, proved to be correct. It was not enough action to win rounds. The Cuban legend suffered only the second defeat of his career, and the other was a shocking stoppage loss to Vasiliy Lomachenko in December 2017.