"He is very upset about it and very disappointed. He is coming off of the best performance of his career and beat the guy that was considered the best in the division and did all he had to do to win, and he feels he's been let down by the network that supported him since he was 6-0 and he's not very happy with the people from Top Rank," stated Gary Hyde, manager of undefeated super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, who discussed their frustrations with HBO, Top Rank, and much more. Check out what else he had to say!
PC: I can't think of a situation since I have been watching or covering the sport of boxing that your fighter Guillermo Rigondeaux is in right now, where he is coming off of one of his most dominant performances, yet HBO and his promoter is pretty much saying there is nothing they can do with him.
GH: It's a hard situation. He is coming off of a dominating performance against one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. It doesn't make sense to him.
PC: As his manager, you have been very vocal and it's obviously very frustrating to you, but how is Guillermo handling it?
GH: He is very upset about it and very disappointed. He is coming off of the best performance of his career and beat the guy that was considered the best in the division and did all he had to do to win, and he feels he's been let down by the network that supported him since he was 6-0 and he's not very happy with the people from Top Rank.
PC: If we lived in a perfect world, when would we see Rigondeaux back in the ring competing?
GH: He would have fought already and he would have fought 3 or 4 times, like Donaire fought last year. Donaire would fight and then they would have him on again 14 weeks later. But he is just training for the moment until they get a proper opponent for him. First they have to find a fighter to accept a fight against him and then it has to be somebody that Top Rank would be happy with. HBO has already said they aren't going to support Rigondeaux, so that's not a problem anymore. We have to move forward now and find a network that is willing to support him and it's gonna have to be some time before November because it's in his contract that they have until then to get something in place. So he will fight before November 1st.
PC: Is it tough keeping him motivated and in the gym training, because he doesn't really know what's next for him?
GH: He is just back from vacation, so he is ready to be back in the gym. The kid lives in the gym. He's been in the gym since he was 7 years of age and he is such a hard trainer. But like you said, he needs to be motivated. I have never seen him so motivated like he was for the Donaire fight. He needs a big fight to get really motivated again and I hope that we can get some good news next week.
PC: You put a list out where he is not only willing to fight the best available, but also travel to their countries or states to fight these guys. He's not opposed to traveling to get these fights, right?
GH: No, he will travel any and everywhere to fight. He went and fought an undefeated Willie Casey in his country in Ireland and knocked him out in one round and then came right back and knocked out Rico Ramos. Rigondeaux doesn't care. When he's in the ring, that's his country, that's his state, and where he belongs. He doesn't care where that ring is; wherever he goes to fight, he knows he has a home, so it doesn't matter to him what country the ring is in.
PC: I wish you guys the best of luck. Definitely keep me in the loop as far as what's going on with him. It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this guy is having a hard time getting air time. Is there anything else you want to say before I let you go?
GH: Keep your eyes open and hopefully I will have some good news next week and we will see Rigondeaux back in action again. You will never see the performance that he put on against Donaire again because he will never fight Donaire again. He's got a different performance for every single opponent. He's got a master performance for every opponent; it might be aggressive or where he has to counter, but he makes the adjustments and he has a different plan for every fighter. And if something is not working, he can switch and he is just an amazing fighter and he's gotta fight.
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