By Ben Jacobs
For the past few days I have been trying to reach esteemed trainer Pedro Diaz who is in Europe for two interesting fights on March 5 and March 12. Travel, time zones and training schedules made it difficult but on Sunday afternoon I caught up with the Cuban and his star pupil Guillermo Rigondeaux (16-0, 10 KOs) following an early evening meal in preparation for their usual 10pm training session.
Currently based in Grozny, Russia, sharing camp with Ruslan Chagaev, Rigondeaux sounded upbeat, content and positive about his forthcoming trip to Liverpool, England where he will face James ‘Jazza’ Dickens on a card that also sees Terry Flanagan defend his WBO lightweight title against Derry Mathews.
“I don’t know much about my opponent, but I know he’s a good fighter and it will be a good fight,” Rigondeaux told BoxingScene.com via telephone.
“We’re ready to go, next Sunday I’ll be in England, I’m looking forward to being welcomed over there.”
Díaz himself has indeed been studying Dickens and believes it will be a good fight for the viewing public.
“I have seen some videos of him, he has good qualities, let’s hope it is a good fight. Furthermore, we’re going to England, we respect every fighter and we respect his team.
“I think Rigo is a complete fighter, he has shown that. If Carl Frampton’s team decide that it would be a good fight that everyone wants to see, then it can happen. It would be champion against champion.
“There are things happening in boxing right now where there are catchweights and fighters don’t want to fight each other. It is taking away from the quality of boxing. If you’re a champion, you have to show it in the ring.
“In my opinion, fighters are being protected,” Pedro continued.
“A true champion is someone who fights all types of opponents. There are great fights that can be made across all the divisions and fans would be seeing top quality all year round, but sometimes there are excuses such as, ‘Rigondeaux doesn’t sell’.
“We need to see title fights in which you don’t know the winner beforehand. Too often now we are seeing championship fights where you can confidently predict the winner. The best fights are when you have no idea who will win, because there is little difference between the competitors.”
When asked his opinion on Saturday nights’ clash between Bury’s Quigg and Belfast’s Frampton, Rigondeaux conceded that as yet he has been unable to view it.
“I wasn’t able to watch the Frampton-Quigg fight, I hear that not much happened in it! I want to fight Frampton, let’s see if he wants to now,” He said, laughing.
“If necessary I’ll fight Frampton over in the UK. I will take those belts off him. I’m ready for anything, if they want to fight, I’m there, if not then so be it. I’ll go and fight in any country, if they call me for a fight I’ll go, gladly.”
The former two-time Olympic gold medallist echoed his trainer’s thoughts with regards to the state of boxing in the modern era.
“It seems like the best don’t fight the best in boxing these days. Sometimes you’ve got five champions in the same weight class and they don’t want to fight each other!
“I could also go up and fight Leo Santa Cruz, why not? Kiko Martínez was too small for him - he comes from a lower weight class.”
Rigondeaux enjoyed a fruitful spell with Díaz in the past culminating in their masterclass performance over Nonito Donaire in 2013. The decision to work together again seemed logical.
“I’ve been working with Pedro again for several weeks, he knows how to get the best out of me and that’s what we’re counting on. We’ve been in Russia for around three weeks now but before that we trained in Miami.”
Díaz was able to see the highly anticipated Frampton-Quigg battle and gave his own views on the matter.
“I think everyone was expecting to see a little bit more. What happened was that Quigg was a little too reserved. If he had pushed a little more it could have been a more exciting fight. I thought Frampton would win but I didn’t think it would be easy.”