Why is it seen as acceptable for everyone to avoid rigo ?

Latinos in general (besides some Jamaicans) usually identify as "Latino" even if they don't look indigenous at all. Everybody can see that Lara and Rigo are black guys. I mean come on, I'm pretty sure they have seen a mirror. Even the white Latino's do it as well. Look at Sergio Martinez and Canelo. Those are white guys. But **** man, they're "Latino".

 

It's a crime, but it's also a crime with more than one culprit.

1)He came up when HBO was still in the mindset of punishing the non-house fighter for showing up its featured guys. Nonito was popular, profitable, and would fight anyone. Beating him should've helped, but in that environment, it didn't.

2)He was never Arum's favorite fighter because building him up took more work than usual (Arum vastly prefers fighters where the local demographics play to his advantage, but never really took to seeking out Cuban fans), but he still isn't a cheap fighter to bankroll given his pedigree when it comes to bigger fights. Promoters, even his own, don't rate him as having promotional upside financially. He's more like that "prestige movie" that movie studios bankroll for awards and to boost the brand, even if it loses them money. That hasn't changed.

3) Lastly, Rigo's too damn stubborn to bother changing. He's been too successful to feel the need to. Rigo is from a culture where winning is everything, period. He got awesome at that. All this talk about changing so he can "be a draw" isn't something he's ever had to deal with, and he doesn't feel like doing it now. Why change what got him this far? So, he's not going to start taking risks, he'll hold back if the other guy can't force the skills out of him, and he's not going to market himself outside the ring.

He hasn't maximized his pro career up to this point, but put yourself in his shoes, and I doubt he's going to sleep at night not being satisfied with his body of work in boxing. Some (not all, but some) of what held him back a bit was due to his own choices, and if he wasn't content with them, he'd change 'em.

 

The weird thing about Mayweather Jr. is the worse his opponents were, the more shot they were, the more he ran and hugged the more people watched him. When he was fighting quality opponents like Castillo and Corrales and being more offensive nobody gave two shits about him.

Then he started running his mouth, lowered his quality of opposition and started clinching and potshotting. Then all of a sudden everybody was buying his fights.

WTF? How is stuff like that even possible?

 

For whatever reason, HBO (and promoters, as well) was big into punishing guys who upset the apple cart at that time.

Happened with Sergio, Pirog, Kotelnik, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a name or two, too...

 

Personally I believe guys like Zarate, Gomez, Pacquiao, Barrera beat the **** out of any version of Rigo.

 

What legit offers have been turned down to face him? How much have the top fighters been offered by Rigo's promoters that they declined?

You can't duck if you aren't made an offer. It's not the job of promoters of other guys to say, 'Hey Rigo, we'll pay you a ton of money to fight our guy.' He's got a promoter and a manager and near as I can tell they haven't thrown out big purse offers to secure more meaningful fights.

 

Post your picture, let see what you look like.

 

Do you pick favorite boxers based on facial aesthetics? I see you have Martinez in your avatar with sexy Sergio in quotes. You're being very gay right now. Lots of homo stuff coming from you.

Because you don't want to get banged by Rigo you detest the guy? Wow.

 

I've lamented about this thread's premise for years, and I've usually been among the voices sticking up for Rigondeaux.

I know he's more than likely not the easiest fighter to work with, and I'm sure he's at least 15% of the behind the scenes and promotional issues, or whatever arbitrary number it is. But the man has for all intents and purposes been blackballed in a nearly unprecedented manner for a large name fighter, simply for being too good. It's setting a precedent, among myriad other issues.

There's a very good chance that one of the top 25 most skilled and technically proficient fighters in the history of the sport, exists in our very own time, and we'll only see a fraction of what he had to give to the sport. Fans are largely oblivious to the fact, and couldn't care less even if informed.

We might as well just burn burn classic boxing footage in my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised in 50 years people read about Rigondeaux's situation now and simply shake their heads and think about what a waste it all is.

 

Sad thing is that Rigo wasn't a unique case. Punishing the "opponent" for making the house fighter look bad was standard operating procedure. What's scary is it could've been worse. He could've gotten Kotelnik'd.

 

Yeah, but 4 of those have been woefully low rated opponents and the knockout was from a cheap shot. I was with Rigo before he showed poor sportsmanship. He's just a guy who doesn't care about other people. Not his promoter, not the fans, not other fighters. It's all about him and that kind of egotism puts me off.

 

What? Sergio Martinez is from Argentina and Canelo is from Mexico. How are they not Latino?

 

Imagine how much money they'd be out right now if they'd fed Frampton and Santa Cruz to Rigo.

 

They are Latino. But they are also white too. Is Kovalev white or Russian? He's both. Latino is not an exclusive category.

 

Rigo is painfully boring though. He's also a 122 pounder. Nobody cares who the best 122 pounder is unless they are extroidinary circumstances. The money usually starts at 126 and then really starts big time at 147 and higher.

If a 122 pounder cannot be highly entertaining nobody is going to give a rats ass about him. No matter how good he is H2H a 122 pounder has got to entertaining to get noticed. It's not like the 160 pound division where you put people to sleep like Hopkins did and still get people to watch. People care who the best MW is.