“Rigo Did Not Quit” Pedro Diaz
The trainer, Pedro Diaz, for Guillermo Rigondeaux has issued a statement in regards to this past weekend’s debacle at Madison Square Garden. Rigondeaux faced fellow double Olympicgoldmedalist VasylLomachenko in a fight that was billed as possibly the best fight of all time on paper.
All the prerequisites for it to be a technical masterpiece were in place, double goldmedalist, two of the greatest amateurs of all time and two top five P4P professionals. It sure did look good on paper. But, it fell drastically short of most pundits expectations to say the least.
Lomachenko did his part butthe Cuban maestro failed. Whether he was simply overwhelmed by the Ukrainian’s prowess or just not on his “A-game” is debatable. What’s not debatable is the actual outcome: Loma dominated and Rigo quit.
Rigondeaux has taken harsh criticism fromthe media and fans for his sixth round withdrawal but his trainer feels it’s undeservedbut does credit Lomachenko for his technical display.
“Rigo felt a discomfort in the hand in round two, and we let him continue the fight… this perhaps made him lose his concentration a bit, he could not develop the tactics that we had mapped out with him. Lomachenko throughout the fight showed great effectiveness, but already in the sixth round Rigo was hit with a punch – and when I saw that punch and took a look at everything that was against Rigo, from a technical and a competitive point of view, we decided to take off the gloves and protect Rigo,” Diaz stated.
“Rigo did not give up.. there is one thing that coaches have to see, which is the appearance of the [fighter], the body language of the [fighter], there are fighters – based on their body language and the look on their face – it can tell you more words than if they were actually talking.”
“In this case, we recognize that Lomachenko is a great fighter, Rigo is coming up two divisions, we do not justify the defeat with this… Rigo lost, Lomachenko won and this is what happened. It is better to try to look for the win than to avoid trying for fear of failure. He pursued it, he tried at 130 and he will return to the lower divisions to prove he is a great boxer.”
By: Chris Henderson
Motherf****r ought to be embarrassed! He got took to school by Loma period. I don’t give a damn what anybody says