Donaire settles differences with Top Rank

By Boxing News - 07/16/2011 - Comments

By Eric Thomas: WBC/WBO bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (26-1, 18 Ko’s) and his promoter Top Rank Promotions have worked out their differences and will be working together. Donaire had recently attempted to leave Top Rank for Golden Boy Promotions after Donaire said that he was a free agent.

However, Bob Arum of Top Rank disagreed with this, pointing out that Donaire was still under contract with them. An independent arbitrator ruled in Top Rank’s favor and that left Donaire with little choice but to either stay with Top Rank or let his boxing career wither away through inactivity.

With Donaire back with Top Rank, Arum has mentioned several fighters that he’s looking to put Donaire in with. He could one of these three guys next: Anselmo Moreno, the WBA bantamweight champion, Guillermo Rigondeaux, or Jorge Arce. The Moreno fight isn’t all that interesting because he’s an unknown in the U.S. and Donaire won’t get a lot of credit for beating someone that few Americans have ever seen or heard of before. It would give Donaire another title to add to his other two, but it might not have much meaning because Moreno isn’t a star or even close to one in the U.S.

Donaire would be better off going after Arce or Rigondeaux or ideally moving up to super bantamweight. The bantamweight division doesn’t have a lot of appealing fights for Donaire if he stays at that weight he’ll likely be the top dog but fail to get the big fights that he wants. Donaire needs to move up in weight and go after guys like Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa if he wants to become a huge star. Wasting time fighting little known guys like Moreno is more of a time waster than anything.

Hopefully, Arum will be putting some of Donaire’s fights on the undercards of Arum’s biggest star’s fights Manny Pacquiao, because that would be a quick way for Donaire to get some attention from the casual boxing fans in the U.S. For some reason Arum hasn’t been putting Donaire on Pacquiao’s undercards.



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