(Note: In the fourth installment of a week long breakdown, boxing scribe Vivek “Vito” Wallace analyzes where today’s top fighters stand, and whether or not 2015 could be the year many of them fall. This week long analysis will cover over 30 top fighters from around the world)

GUILLERMO RIGONDEAUX

For the best boxer of this era to rise from the Cuban ranks, 2014 was far from eventful. After a stunning 2013 that saw him defeat both Donaire and Agbeko, 2014 saw him destroy an unknown fighter in China, and forcibly scrape himself off the canvas twice against an unknown fighter in Japan. Definitely not the level of competition you’d like to see from a fighter none as “boring”.

Anyone who stayed awake through the encounter between boxing’s most avoided robot, Guillermo Rigondeaux, and mere human, Hisashi Amagasa, would have been delighted to see Rigondeaux get knocked down twice and visibly hurt in round 7.

The start of the fight was typical Rigondeaux, an incredible display of balance, poise and posturing that would be heralded by the Royal Ballet School, but had everyone else nodding off more then a room full of junkies. There’s only so much “sweet science” I could marvel at before my mind wondered and started thinking about why the Japanese decided to count up to 3 minutes instead of down, and why so many in the crowd were wearing respiratory face masks.

2014/2015 Reviews & Previews: Nicholas Walters, Guilliermo Rigondeaux, Leo Santa Cruz, Vasyl Lomachenko, Sergey Kovalev, Adonis Stevenson, & Jean Pascal

Boxing robot overcomes two knockdowns to systematically destroy mere Japanese human