By Miguel Rivera
One of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters of all-time, Roberto 'Hands of Stone' Duran, is fully backing Guillermo Rigondeaux (17-0, 11 KOs) to defeat WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (9-1, 7 KOs).
The contest takes place on December 9th from New York's Madison Square Garden. ESPN will televise the fight.
Rigondeaux, who holds the WBA super bantamweight world title, will move up by eight-pounds and two full weight divisions to challenge Lomachenko for his WBO title at 130-pounds.
The fight will be a historic meeting between two of the greatest amateur fighters of all-time.
Adding to that, each boxer has won two Olympic gold medals.
Duran himself has moved up in weight when he was a pro and knows the dangers and the benefits of packing on more pounds to challenge bigger men. He believes Rigondeaux will be a far more dangerous force at the higher weight limit.
"It's a very good fight, but I'm going with Rigondeaux," said Duran to ESPN Deportes.
"Rigo is going to be stronger, he's going to be faster and the punching power is going to increase more. People are deceived, because they think that when you gain weight you are automatically going to get slow and lose power - but that's a lie. When you gain weight - you are stronger, faster and you punch harder.
"That fight will be good but I'll stay with the Cuban, he's more alive, he's going to move, he's going to move away [from punches], and he's not going to allow himself to be beaten. It's going to be the same outcome as Rigondeaux and Donaire. He gave Donaire a boxing lesson in the ring. I always remember well what Donaire said, that he was going to give Rigo a boxing lesson. And Rigo said 'you have nothing to teach me, I had 200 fights [as an amateur],' and the guy gave a boxing lesson to Nonito."
2023-10-19 21:35:20
