Merchant: Donaire’s management see difficulty in Rigondeaux’s style and aren’t eager to make this match

By Boxing News - 01/27/2012 - Comments

Image: Merchant: Donaire's management see difficulty in Rigondeaux's style and aren't eager to make this matchBy Chris Williams: Two time world champion Nonito Donaire isn’t the only one on his team that is reluctant for him to fight WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (9-0, 7 KO’s); Donaire’s management might also be against him fighting the former 2-time Olympic Gold medalist as well due to Rigondeaux’s difficult southpaw counter-punching style of fighting, says Larry Merchant in an interview at examiner.com.

Merchant told writer Chris Robinson of examiner.com “Advisors who can see difficulty in fighting his [Rigondeaux] style. I’m not sure they’re going to be eager to fight him…the winner of Donaire-Vazquez isn’t going to be eager to fight this guy.”

Merchant is 100% correct. Not only is Donaire not interested in taking the Rigondeaux fight, but Donaire’s management has been completely silent on a fight with Rigondeaux and that kind of tells you that they’re probably not willing to take that risk.

Rigondeaux, 5’4 ½”, did struggle in his win over the 5’8” Ricardo Cordoba by a 12 round split decision in November 2010 in a fight where Rigondeaux had problems with Cordoba’s height and long reach. Rigondeaux hit the canvas in the 6th from a flash knockdown, but from that point on, he moved constantly and focused on boxing his way to a rather dull decision.

Cordoba literally couldn’t lay a glove on Rigondeaux once he started moving, because his defense was so good. But the fight was a rather boring one to watch and there was a lot of booing afterwards. That was almost two years ago and Rigondeaux looked a lot more offensive in his last fight against Rico Ramos and just as hard to hit. That’s what makes Rigondeux so tough for someone like Donaire; you can’t really hit Rigondeaux all that much, and he’s going to set traps where he lures you in and tags you with powerful body shots like the one that he took Ramos out with. I can’t see Donaire agreeing to fight Rigondeaux unless the Cuban looks horrible in one of his fights to where Donaire likes his chances. He probably doesn’t feel comfortable with Rigondeaux’s counter punching ability and body punching knockout style to where he he feels that it’s a safe fight to take. Rigondeaux hurts his opponents when he hits them with body shots they’re not expecting because of his quick knive-like counter-punching. When he hits his opponents in the gut, they keel over and don’t want to fight anymore.



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