I picked Lomo to win because he's younger and bigger. I'm not a fan of either guy. Lomo won for the reasons I gave when I picked him. Personally I felt if Rigo couldn't hurt or drop Lomo he had little chance of winning. Add that Rigo hurt his hand.
Yeah i was going to say it's not that uncommon at all. I never knew Tyson was included in that though. De La Hoya is always the name people bring up when talking about leading with their dominant hand.
First let's start by looking at each fighter and what they do.
Loma is a combination puncher but his strong and more often used hand is the lead or the right hand. He varies his jab, he hooks it, he doubles it, he fakes it, he triples it, he probes you with it, he goes to the body with it, he counters you with his jab when you commit. He's a very strong lead hand puncher if not one of the best. And his quick footwork and shuffling steps get him in out of range, and at that point he already has you on your toes. Once he figures out his range and timing with his lead hand, there is no coming back and that's exactly what happened to Rigondeaux.
Now Rigo on the other hand is a boxer that relies mainly on the back hand. He uses the lead hand as a range finder to set you up for the straight left, looping left and the left uppercut. He does use footwork and feints when he leads the attack in order to find holes in your defense and then detonate. He relies on his timing and head movement to land the left as a counter. Again he can shoot it to the body, head, loop it or uppercut with it. Rigo is not a combination puncher the way Loma is.
So the fight essentially was a battle of the lead hands because that's what Loma wanted. Rigondeaux's jab is not his strong point. He's not great at throwing it and he's not great at defending against it. Loma is great at both throwing and defending against the jab. Rigo could get away with his lead hand flaw on both defense and offense when he faces an orthodox fighter. This is not the case however, when he faces a fellow southpaw. Ricardo Cordoba gave Rigondeaux his hardest fight prior to Loma and guess what,Cordoba was a southpaw too. As a matter of fact Cordoba knocked Rigondeaux down with a jab.
In the fight itself you could see how Rigondeaux tries to parry Loma's jab with his lead hand in order to throw the left as opposed to trying to parry it with his back hand and exchange jabs. Loma faked him enough, got in, got out and then starting doubling the jab and countering Rigo with his jab. It was pretty simple what Loma did to Rigo, which is crazy. He took the back hand away from Rigo and said let's see whose lead hand is better. This is why the jab and not just throwing it but knowing how to defend against it is the most important skill in boxing.
My take was Loma was two divisions higher and won because he was bigger. Nothing more needs to be said.
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