Guillermo Rigondeaux, former world boxing champion, on Thursday suffered injuries to his face and both eyes in an accident that took place at his home in Miami, Florida, USA.
According to reports, Rigondeaux was cooking when a pressure cooker exploded. So far, he only has 20% of his vision left, so he won’t be able to return to the ring for expected future.
The two-time Cuban gold medalist will obviously undergo further examinations over the next few days.
His coach, Alex Bornote, regretted what had happened, and said that, for now, the medical teams believe that only the retina will have been affected, so he will be able to recover all his vision. However, more serious problems are not ruled out.
“When the pot exploded and we saw how Rigondeaux was, we thought the worst, because his face and eyes looked very bad from the impact. But we hope he recovers.” Bornote said.
“The next week to 10 days is really going to define his fighting career and his future because that’s when the cornea needs to regenerate itself and he can see or not. But gathering from the last 24 hours, he’s doing really good.” Bornote added.
Rigondeaux was former WBA and WBO super bantamweight world champion, won gold in the bantamweight division at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics.
The 41-year-old boxer lost his last two fights, including a shocking defeat via unanimous decision to Vincent Astrolabio last Saturday in Dubai. He was scheduled to fight again in August, but it’s unclear whether he’ll be fit to do so.
“He was scheduled to fight before the year’s over, sometime in August, so the next 72 hours are the most important. He’s a little depressed seeing the decline in his ability, but it’s mostly psychological.” Bornote said.
