Rigondeaux’s Left Leaves Dickens a Broken Man

Rigondeaux’s Left Leaves Dickens a Broken Man
By: Oz Ozkaya

The WBA World Super-Bantamweight clash between champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, and challenger Jamie ‘Jazza’ Dickens, certainly didn’t fail to produce the world class touch that many had paid to see. Sadly, in the short two rounds that were witnessed, it was only Rigondeaux who produced that small glimmer of class. After a steady start, Rigondeaux quickly got his eye in and dealt a fatal left-handed hook shot that broke the jaw of Jamie Dickens.

Leading up to this fight, Rigondeaux, or as he is better known ‘Rigo’, had been caught up in a Visa complication which ultimately led to the cancellation of the previously arranged fight with Dickens, back in March. However, with everything during the build-up running much smoother this time; the fight was all that was left to complete.

Rigondeaux and Dickens, as you could suspect, both talked about defeating one another in their own spectacularly envisaged ways pre-fight. But with Rigondeaux appearing extremely focused through all the press that he had done, in addition to the public pad work sessions where he showed off how quick and skillful he is, it was widely thought that he was going to make light work of Dickens and claim yet another scalp to add to his perfect record of 16-0.

In all fairness his opponent cannot really be criticised for last night, after all, despite receiving a few lightning quick combinations from Rigondeaux in the first, of which he countered twice respectably, he never really got the chance to get going. Once he was back in the corner at the end of the second after Rigondeaux’s venomous overhead left, it was unanimously decided among the Dickens team that it was game over. The heart of Dickens wanted to fight on, but sadly for him the heads in his corner knew it was too big a risk to continue.

Speaking after the fight, a dejected Dickens tells of the motions when Rigondeaux’s left connected.

“Yeh, I knew straight away it was broken. I felt the crack when he landed. I felt it hanging off but I thought that I could carry on. I thought if it was meant to be I could get him but I knew that if he connected again, it was just going to come right off.

“We all made the call at the end of the (second) round. It was sensible really. Paul and Mick (Stevenson) said they had to pull me out, that I couldn’t go back out like that. I wanted to think I could get him but realistically it wasn’t worth it.”

It is unknown at this point as to how bad the damage on his jaw is, but one thing is for certain; The sound that the overhand left Rigondeaux delivered could probably have been heard all the way back in Miami, Florida. It was crisp, clear-cut, powerful… and thrown at the speed of light. Dickens was wobbled and appeared confused from damage, but, somehow managed to survive the onslaught.

After the fight speaking to Box Nation (Who hosted the fight on U.K television), Rigondeaux said that he wanted to stay in the U.K and fight again but only if Frank Warren would like him to. Frank Warren (Queensbury Promotions) was, of course, grinning from to cheek at the mere notion of that idea, Rigondeaux and he then subsequently shook hands in the post-ringside interview.

“I’m not the best, but I’m the most complete,” Rigondeaux said. “I ripped his jaw out. All those guys that want their jaws ripped out, I’m here!”. He then went on to say: ”Not 100 of those guys add up to 1 of me. I want hard fights. People make it boring [against me] once they feel my power.”

The future for Rigondeaux remains to be seen, at 35, this may be his last push to secure some big main event clashes. Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg were two of the fighters named post match, and Rigo appeared un-phased about who could potentially be put in front of him, the only question on his mind; when and where?.

An interesting night of Boxing in Cardiff for sure. The British & Commonwealth Super Welterweight Championship match between Luke Williams and Gary Corcoran producing arguably the best fight of the evening, in what actually turned out to be more of a highly energetic street fight than a boxing match. Williams landing some crushing blows to Corcoran in the early rounds, more memorably a swiftly executed hook managed to open up a large gash above the left eye of Corcoran. His corner then left with the job of keeping patched up thereafter.

Going into the final rounds it was all very ‘from me to you’ with the ever-changing shift in momentum. Despite somehow managing to remain composed from an earlier knockdown (which wasn’t classed as a knocked down as he miraculously bounced off the ropes and landed back on his feet) Corcoran was trying absolutely everything he could to try and slay Williams. But, the opposite happened and after withstanding a lot of tidy jab-by-jab work and meaty body shots, Williams pulled out a stunning KO from his almost empty locker.