LAS VEGAS -- If you listened close enough, you could have heard a conversation in the 20th row Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino Events Center in Las Vegas. Guillermo Rigondeaux can do that. The former Cuban Olympian can be the perfect sound vacuum, sucking up the air, the sound, the life out of a vibrant crowd.
Related » Rigondeaux vs. Francisco Round-by-Round Scoring
And then Rigondeaux (16-0, 10 KOs) reverted back into who he really is rather quickly—along with the prerequisite boos that come along with his cautious style.
While the cure-for-insomnia factor remains high with Rigondeaux, his master craftsmanship is also very much intact, too.
Rigondeaux drained the life out of the sparse crowd that had been filling for the main event, and then proceeded to drain the life out of Drian, pecking and poking his way to another unanimous ho-hum junior featherweight victory.
Rigondeaux did little to aid his brand. In fact, regrettably, he endorsed it. He may have won every second of every round, but he most certainly didn’t stock his shelf with more fans. By the fourth round, fans began a chanting war between the two main combatants paying little if no attention to what was going on between Rigondeaux and Francisco. Simply because there was nothing going on.
During the fifth round a fan let out a shrill scream from the balcony level. Maybe it was out of sheer boredom to stay awake, or an attempt to voice his own displeasure over what was transpiring in front of him. After the scores of 97-93 (Don Trella) and 100-90 twice (Steve Morrow and Richard Ocasio) were read, it was hard to decipher endured more punishment, Francisco or the fans. They let out a derisive cheer when the final bell rang.
Joseph Santoliquito is the president of the Boxing Writer's Association of America and a frequent contributor to Sherdog.com's mixed martial arts and boxing coverage. His archive can be found here.