Rigondeaux Rides Bicycle As Casimero Retains 

Showtime closed out their broadcast with a WBO World Bantamweight contest between Guillermo Rigondeaux and John Riel Casimero with Casimero winning by split decision.

The official scorecards for this contest were 115-113 for Rigondeaux, but overturned by cards of 116-112 and 117-111  in a fight that really awarded Casimero despite only land 5% of his jabs.

This fight started exactly how I mentioned on the latest Big Fight Weekend Podcast with Guillermo Rigondeaux hanging on the outside. However, in the early going, Casimero was following along, cutting off the ring with him. A good exchange looked to have staggered Rigondeauxin the first round, but was ruled down by a slip instead of a knockdown.

As the fight progressed, one thing that was standing out was how Rigondeaux was staying on the bicycle, much to the restless in attendance at the Dignity Health Sports Complex in Carson, CA, as a smattering of boos could be heard as the end of the fourth round sounded. This was par for the course for Rigondeaux made it a habit to land rights from afar as the fight grew on that Casimero didn’t have an answer for.

Is @CompuBox counting the total steps in #RigondeauxCasimero? #Running #MyFitnessPal

— Manouk Akopyan (@ManoukAkopyan) August 15, 2021

Another problem that Casimero, now 31-4, 20 KOS, was running into was he was just following Rigondeaux around the ring and not throwing any punches. It made the rounds in the middle of this fight almost undoubtedly for the 41 year old Rigondeaux. It has gotten to the point in the seventh round that Rigondeaux began taunting Casimero in the ring, bouncing around as him while he missed wildly.

The nothing continued here as Casimero’s inability to cut off the ring lead to a lot more cardio work in the ring as he was getting 1-2 to the point of no end in sight. The broadcast gave Casimero a nod to being more aggressive in the championship rounds, but even Showtime’s Mauro Ranallo had the line of the fight saying “What is more frustrating? Fighting Rigondeaux or watching him?”.

The answer after 36 minutes of this was applying eyeballs to this stinker of a main event.

Casimero retains for the second time, here but we’ll see who he gets next. Hopefully, the bring back the notion of the unification against fellow Filipino Nonito Donaire, but he’ll have to land more than 47 punches next time out.