Johnriel Casimero played cat and mouse with Cuban challenger Guillermo Rigondeux and managed to eke out a split decision win to retain the World Boxing Organization bantamweight title.
The Filipino champion kept himself busy chasing Rigondeux, who refused to engage in the entirety of their 12-round bout on Saturday (Sunday morning in Manila) at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
The promised knockout in the 3rd round did not come for Casimero, but he nonetheless earned the nod of two judges, 116-112 and 117-111, on the way to a seventh straight win, with the previous six coming via knockout.
Interestingly, the third judge found Rigondeux’s running binge impressive enough and scored the bout for the 40-year old-Cuban, 115-113.
Casimero, now with 31 wins against 4 losses, appeared headed to a slam-bang of a fight as he exploded with a couple of right hooks, with the last one looking like a good hit as it decked Rigondeux.
But the referee called it a slip.
From there, Rigondeux doubled his efforts in maintaining his distance, running away from Casimero while connecting some sporadic counters.
In the third round, the crowd started to jeer, calling for more action.
Even the referee appeared clueless and failed to call out the fighters to engage.
Casimero’s corner advised him to hit the body to ignite action.
The Filipino even took a pause, positioned himself at the center of the ring and urged the challenger to engage. But Rigondeux kept on running.
After the fight, Casimero blasted Rigondeux, who fell to a fight record of 187 wins (26KOs), 7 losses and 1 draw.
“My expectation was a knockout. I wanted a knockout. I tried to knock him out, but Rigondeaux was always running and not fighting,” said Casimero.
The cat-and-mouse match ended with Casimero connecting just 46 punches to Rigondeux’s 44.
The bout looked so boring that a panelist even cried out to ask which was more frustrating? “To fight Rigo or watch Rigo fight.”
Still Rigondeux felt he has nothing to be ashamed of.
“I am not going to make excuses for anything. I was expecting a guy ready to blow my chin away and sent me to retirement. But I am not a picture on a bag. I can actually box. I learned before becoming a champ back in Cuba,” he posted on his Twitter account.