The former pound for pound king, Floyd Mayweather Jr., was not very impressed with Vasyl Lomachenko's one-sided stoppage of Guillermo Rigondeaux, which took place last Saturday night at The Theater in New York's Madison Square Garden.
The fight was heavily hyped, as it was the first fight in boxing history to match two, two-time Olympic gold medal winners in the ring with each other.
Lomachenko dominated the fight from start to finish, until Rigondeaux quit on his stool at the end of the sixth round - citing a left hand injury.
Mayweather felt Rigondeaux was way too small and the two boxers had an obvious size difference when they stepped in the ring with each other.
Rigondeaux had moved up by two weight divisions (eight pounds) to challenge Lomachenko at super featherweight (130-pounds) for the WBO title.
And Mayweather doubts Rigondeaux had a legit hand injury.
"I never fought a guy that was that small. He was smaller than that. Honestly, they didn't look like they belonged in the ring together," Mayweather told Fighthype.com.
"I don't think Rigondeaux had a hand problem. Rigondeaux should just take that as a learning experience. A guy that big, I could see the difference when they got into the ring. A small good fighter will never beat a big good fighter. It'll never happen."
Of course Mayweather himself did a similar move in 2009, when he fought and dominated Juan Manuel Marquez - who jumped from lightweight to welterweight (twelve pounds) for the bout.
As far as the in-ring action, Mayweather felt the contest was a complete stinker and very few would argue that viewpoint. The clash of style and Rigondeaux's refusal to throw any punches, made it a very lackluster fight.
"It really was no damage done to neither side. Real stiff, robotic fight. Nobody really landed like no killer, solid shots," Mayweather said.
"You can look at me and Diego Corrales. I can't take that away from Lomachenko. He done what he had to do."
2023-10-20 05:02:37
