Guillermo Rigondeaux, a Cuban boxer, suffered life changing injuries back in March of this year when a pressure cooker exploded in his face.

Representing Cuba as an amateur, his medal haul is ridiculously impressive, all his achievements came at bantamweight, with the stand outs being Olympic gold back in Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004.

He also won World Championship gold in 2001 and 2005 at Belfast and Mianyang. He has three world cup golds to add to the collection, with one at each the Pan American games and Central American and Caribbean Games.

He was dominant at the Cuban National Championships, winning gold from 2000 to 2006. He was victorious every year he competed in the championships.

Overall, he competed in 386 amateur bouts, winning a staggering 374 of them, losing on just 12 occasions. It’s safe to say he dominated the amateur scene while he was a part of it.

Professionally he obviously has had fewer fights, but could still boast a good record. Out of the 24 fights he took part in, he won 20, with 13 coming via knockout. He only had three losses with one of his fights being a no contest.

El Chacal is a former world champion in two weight divisions, he held the unified WBA (Super), WBO and Ring belts at super bantamweight from 2013-2017. He then held the WBA (regular) belt in the bantamweight division from 2020-2021.

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 09: Guillermo Rigondeaux walks into the ring prior to his Junior Lightweight bout against Vasiliy Lomachenko at Madison Square Garden on December 9, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Steven Ryan/Getty Images)

It’s no surprise to see him have such a successful career after having one of the best amateur records we’ve ever seen in boxing.

Unfortunately, at 41 years old, his time in the ring will likely be over, even including exhibitions as tragedy hit Rigondeaux earlier on in 2022.

A pressure cooker exploded in his face, severely burning both of his eyes in the process, leading to him losing 80% of his vision.

His manager, Alex Boronte, confirmed that the Cuban boxer suffered the injuries whilst cooking black beans at his Miami home.

A bean clogged up the place where steam exits the cooker, making the machine like a bomb. Although his injuries are life changing, he could have been killed so it’s a relief he didn’t come off any worse.

He has been quiet since the injury, posting the first picture of himself in four months. You can see the damage caused to his face, thankfully, he is still here to tell the story and it didn’t end much more tragically for him.