Casimero wants to retire Rigondeaux, says MP Promotions chief


WBO bantamweight champion John Riel Casimero (Team Casimero)

MP Promotions chief Sean Gibbons said John Riel Casimero, the WBO bantamweight champion, is eager to clash with fellow titleholder Guillermo Rigondeaux.

Gibbons has expressed desire for Casimero to take on the Cuban WBA regular champ in a match between a "classic boxer versus puncher."

"John Riel Casimero would love to do a favor for the boxing fans and retire Guillermo Rigondeaux once and for all! It would be a great fight," Gibbons told Ryan Burton of BoxingScene.com.

"Casimero can do a lot of different things. Rigondeaux is 20-1, only lost to Vasiliy Lomachenko in a fight way out of his weight division. He is a future Hall of Famer possibly. Casimero and him would be an explosive fight and I think the fans would really enjoy it."

Casimero and Rigondeaux have been the talk of the town after reports surfaced about their potential unification bout.

The two champions, likewise, had an exchange of indirect banters with confidence on how they will fare against each other in the boxing ring.

Casimero is currently on a six-match win streak with the latest coming from a technical knockout win over Ghanaian pug Duke Micah last September which was his first fight amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 32-year-old Casimero, who holds a 30-4 record on top of 21 KOs, has been in the waiting game for so long against unified WBA and IBF king Naoya Inoue of Japan.

READ: Casimero taunts Inoue: ‘Kahit papa pa niya referee lalabanan ko siya’

The duel between Casimero and Inoue has yet to materialize after being reset twice and Hall of Fame promoter and Top Rank honcho Bob Arum eventually matched up Inoue against Jason Moloney of Australia.

Inoue had defended his titles in a seventh-round knockout win against the Aussie foe.

READ: Casimero fancies mouth-watering fight with ‘The Monster’; Patience running out: Casimero draws Plan B as Inoue fight loses grip

Rigondeaux, for his part, last saw action in February 2020 with a split decision victory over Liborio Solis of Venezuela to improve at 20-1 record with 13 KOs.