The 2000 and 2004 Olympic bantamweight gold medalist and former Wba super-Bw champion Guillermo Rigondeaux entered this fight with a pro boxing record of 18-1-0 (12 knockouts) and he is ranked as the No.4 super bantamweight in the world (currently the #1 in this division is Emanuel Navarrete). He suffered his only loss when he faced Vasyl Lomachenko in 2017 (Vasyl Lomachenko vs Guillermo Rigondeaux), after this bout he has beat Giovanni Delgado (Guillermo Rigondeaux vs Giovanni Delgado).
His opponent, the former Wbc super-Bw champ Julio Ceja, has a record of 32-3-0 (28 KOs=87%) but he is not ranked as he hasn’t fought since May 26, 2018 when he was defeated by Franklin Manzanilla (Julio Ceja vs Franklin Manzanilla); before this bout, in 2017, he had won over Anselmo Moreno (Anselmo Moreno vs Julio Ceja). Rigondeaux vs Ceja, WBC World super bantamweight title final eliminator, is on the undercard of Jermell Charlo vs Jorge Cota. Watch the video and rate this fight!
Date: 2019-06-23
Where: Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Division: super bantamweight (122 lbs, 55.3 kg)
Rigondeaux’s previous fight: Guillermo Rigondeaux vs Giovanni Delgado
Ceja’s previous fight: Julio Ceja vs Franklin Manzanilla
Ceja’s next fight: Brandon Figueroa vs Julio Ceja
Rigondeaux’s next fight: Guillermo Rigondeaux vs Liborio Solis
Rigondeaux vs Ceja full fight video:
(Free embeddable video hosted on Youtube/Facebook and not uploaded by AllTheBestFights)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm3tKV6JFh4
Official video
Official highlights
Very good and active fight which was extremely close. I never saw Guillermo fighting at so close distance and taking the risk of exchanging so many solid punches with Cejas, usually he is very cautious till the point of being boring most of the time. Cejas almost take him down in round 6th, he was really lucky that these 2 strong punches to the head were just connected few seconds before the end of the round. I don’t know what the referee saw to stop this fight so abruptly. In my opinion Cejas was still very able to stop Rigo at any time.