Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum says WBO jr lightweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko won’t let WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux “stink out” the Theater at New York City’s Madison Square Garden when the two two-time Olympic gold medalists collide December 9 on ESPN.
Bob Arum: Let me give you my expert opinion because I’ve been around the sport for a lot of years. What you are looking at here are two different schools of boxing. The Cuban and the Eastern European.
The Eastern European, let me start with Vasyl Lomachenko – he is very technically proficient and very good and when he is fighting he is very defensive minded, looks for an opening, but always with the goal in mind, not only to win a points victory but also to hurt, or knockout or make his opponent quit.
Watch every one of his fights – it’s always designed, very crowd pleasing because it gives the crowd – the crowd gets into it – because he is looking to destroy his opponent. That’s pretty much the Eastern European style.
The Cuban style is different, they pile up points then they stink you out till the end of the fight because all they care about is winning the fight on points.
So in this fight, Vasyl will not allow Rigondeaux to pile up points, so Rigondeaux, to win the fight, will have to be more aggressive than he wants to be.
When you watch Rigondeaux fight you will see a fantastic fighter who is aggressive, piles up points and then stinks you out by just coasting to victory. That’s the Cuban style – just win, brother. Win by the points — a different style from the Eastern European.
I think this is going to be a very, very good fight, a very interesting fight because Rigondeaux is not going to be able to gut out a big lead on points on Vasyl, therefore he will have to fight the entire fight as long as it goes to win a victory.
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Rigondeaux is a very, very good fighter. He is one of the best fighters that I have seen. He is a terrific fighter. You can’t let him pile up points because then he will coast and stink you out.
Vasyl is no only a great fighter – he is the best fighter since the young Muhammad Ali. He will not concede the ground early, therefore Rigondeaux will have to fight the entire fight in order to win and therefore I see a very, very exciting fight and you are going to see the best of these guys.