I have to be honest about Rigondeaux...

While he's a fine boxer at 122 and arguably top 3 p4p, I really wouldn't favor him over many of the top guys at 130 and there are also a couple at 126 that'd really trouble him as well.
In my opinion Farmer, Davis, Pedraza, Berchelt, Salido,Russell, and Walters would all blast him out and likely would all be favored over him if they were to share the ring, for the most part on natural size alone. It makes the notion of a bout with Lomachenko almost laughable.
Don't get me wrong I'd still like to see him face Lomachenko in some capacity but it's an almost impossible task to assign to a 36 year old jr. featherweight who's already small at his current weight class. Anyone else feel that he could somehow be a real threat at Jr. Lightweight if so what top 10 contenders do you think he'd defeat?

 

He may have rehydrated that weight but junior featherweight was his correct weight class he looked great undersized and overpowered when he faced a fellow featherweight in Nicholas Walters.

 

You'd confidently pick Rigondeaux to defeat Russell Jr. ?

 

A lot of Rigondeaux's opponents manage to be quite lucky don't they? He's not exactly a fighter known for becoming aggressive and pressing for a ko.

 

Fair enough I just see that fight as 50/50 at best. Rigo no doubt has enough pop to keep opposition from getting too reckless but is still far from a ko puncher. And he hasnt looked impressive in years although its hard to evaluate the performance of his last two fights.

 

I know one thing for sure. If Rigondeaux lands his best punch on Russell then it might make him a bit gun shy throughout the fight, however, if Russell lands his best shot on Rigondeaux then he'd be in a world of trouble and I seriously don't even think it'd take Russell's best shot to put Rigondeaux on ***** street. And even though Rigo is a master boxer he still has a lapse or two where he becomes sloppy during fights this would be very costly against a fighter of Russell's caliber.