A few days ago, Rigondeaux was stripped by the World Boxing Organization (WBO) of his super bantamweight title for inactivity.
For six years since turning pro in 2009, Rigondeaux has only 15 fights to his credit. In the beginning of his pro career, he was quite active doing at least three fight a year.
Last year Rigondeaux fought twice but this year he has yet to find a new opponent after the WBA rejected Cesar Seda of Puerto Rico in a title fight originally scheduled for Dec. 4 in Ottawa, Canada.
It appears that promoters handling Rigondeaux are finding it difficult to match the Cuban Olympian with financially viable opponents primarily because of his boring fighting style.
Top Ranks’ Bob Arum used to promote Rigondeaux but he gave up after struggling to find willing opponents to accelerate his slow-moving career.
Arum knows that a boxing event that lacks entertainment because of the fighter’s boring style of fighting, will not attract a reasonable number of patronage and would be very hard to promote.
“Out of all the elite fighters I’ve worked with,” Bob Arum said, “I can’t think of one more difficult to promote.”
“Putting him on an HBO card is not easy,” Arum said. “I have to make fights that are very difficult for him. And hopefully he comes through,” he added.
Arum has released Rigondeaux after he outpointed Donaire in a title fight last April 2014.
In 2013, Rigondeaux fought Joseph Agbeko in Atlantic City and many in the crowd walked away from the venue as they found the fight boring to watch.
“People began to leave the arena in the middle of Rigondeaux’s bout as it offered very little excitement. Agbeko wasn’t doing much to try and apply the pressure or even win the fight, he basically just stood there and moved his head in an effort to avoid Rigondeaux’s jabs and quick left crosses,” boxinginsider William Holmes noted. Read more.
Rigondeaux is a very skilled boxer having won two gold medals in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics but he needs to change his fighting style to help his promoter sell his future fights and to make his fights more appealing and entertaining to his audience.
