Vasyl Lomachenko vs Guillermo Rigondeaux

Vasyl Lomachenko retained his WBO world super featherweight title at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday, December 9, 2017, when Guillermo Rigondeaux retired after six rounds. The Cuban complained of pain in his left hand and stayed on his stool as the seventh round was about to begin. The Top Rank promotion drew a capacity crowd of 5,102, which had cheered both men at the outset and booed the finish.

It was the first professional meeting between boxers who had each won two Olympic gold medals. Rigondeaux had won his in 2000 and 2004, and Lomachenko in 2008 and 2012. Rigondeaux was 37 and had yet to lose as a professional. He came up two divisions from super bantamweight to challenge Lomachenko, who was 29. At Friday’s weigh-in, Lomachenko scaled 129 pounds and Rigondeaux 128.4. At the check on the morning of the fight, they weighed 137.4 and 130 pounds, respectively.

The two southpaws spent much of the first round testing the distance with their lead hands. Rigondeaux took the initiative at times and threw a left over the top in the closing seconds. There was little clean punching. Glenn Feldman and Kevin Morgan gave Rigondeaux the round, while Steve Weisfeld gave it to Lomachenko. All three judges were in agreement for the rest of the contest.

Lomachenko took up the pursuit in the second, doubling his right jab and getting a short right hook around the guard. Rigondeaux bent low as the champion stepped in and tied him up when he got close. The two grappled along the ropes, and referee Steve Willis warned Rigondeaux for holding. In the third, the Cuban slipped beneath several punches and found the body with short counters, but Lomachenko kept coming and began to bring the right uppercut through the middle.

Rigondeaux could still make Lomachenko miss by dipping at the waist, but he seldom followed those evasions with punches of his own. Lomachenko kept changing his position in front of him, coming in behind the jab and stepping to the side to punch as the Cuban ducked. The right side of Rigondeaux’s face began to swell. CompuBox credited the champion with 16 connects in the fourth round alone. In the fifth, Willis stopped the action to warn Rigondeaux for punching on the break, and much of the closing exchange was spent in another clinch.

Rigondeaux got a left into the body early in the sixth, but the holding persisted, and Willis took a point from him. Lomachenko caught him with a left to the jaw before the bell. Neither man had been down. Rigondeaux’s corner called a halt during the interval, and the result was recorded as a retirement at 3:00 of the sixth.

CompuBox counted 55 punches landed from 339 thrown by Lomachenko and 15 from 178 by Rigondeaux, who landed no more than three in any round. Rigondeaux said afterwards that he had hurt the top of his left hand in the second. His promoter, Dino Duva, subsequently reported that an examination found substantial bruising and no fracture.

It was Lomachenko’s fourth defence of the title and his tenth victory in eleven professional bouts. Nicholas Walters, Jason Sosa and Miguel Marriaga had also retired between rounds in his three preceding contests. The defeat was Rigondeaux’s first as a professional, and the WBA subsequently announced that it would strip him of its super bantamweight title under the terms on which it had permitted him to take the bout.

I can see why people fancied this. Rigondeaux had made Nonito Donaire miss and pay, and Lomachenko had already left Nicholas Walters and Jason Sosa on their stools. I wanted to see what Rigondeaux would do when a man could close the gap without walking onto his left.

Watch Lomachenko’s right hand. He doubles the jab to get in, then brings it up the middle when Rigondeaux ducks. Rigondeaux could still make him miss, but he was too busy grabbing to make him pay. It cost him a point in the sixth. He’d gone up two weights, and the bruised left hand was real. Even so, when he stayed on his stool, I’d seen enough to know Lomachenko had his measure.