By Chris Williams: It’s looking more and more like WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) will get passed over by WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) if his promoter Bob Arum accepts the $3 million offer made to him by Golden Boy Promotions.
There’s no question that Donaire will take the Mares fight if Arum gives him the green light on the deal instead of facing the dangerous Rigondeaux. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if Rigondeaux was going to get a guaranteed shot at Donaire after the Mares fight, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Even if the Mares-Donaire doesn’t take place, I think Rigondeaux is going to keep getting passed over by Donaire so that he can fight guys like Vic Darchinyan and Chris John. Believe it or not, Darchinyan may be the next guy Donaire fights if his bout with Mares doesn’t come off. Darchinyan, who has lost two out of his last three fights, is being considered by Donaire’s team for his next bout.
What’s hurting Rigondeaux is that he’s not as popular as the guys Donaire has been facing lately. For him to be a strong candidate for Donaire, he would need a large fan base like Jorge Arce.
That doesn’t mean that Donaire only fights guys that have a huge fan base because look at his fights against Jeffrey Mathebula and Toshiaki Nishioka. Neither fighter was well known in the U.S, yet Donaire still fought them. However, those guys weren’t nearly as dangerous as Rigondeaux, so they were relatively safe fights for Donaire to make.
If Rigondeaux is ever going to get a fight with Donaire, it might be after he’s exhausted all possibilities at super bantamweight, and even then it still might not happen. Donaire could move up in weight to featherweight in the near future, and unless Rigondeaux follows after him, the chances of Donaire moving back down to 122 just to fight Rigondeaux are probably remote. I don’t see Donaire going backwards with his career once he moves up in weight.
Rigondeaux can always follow him to featherweight, but at 5’5”, he may not have the size to be competing with some of the taller fighters at that weight class, and he still may not get the fight that he wants against Donaire if he moves up.
Arum is the key to all of this. If he can convince Donaire to take the fight with Rigondeaux, then it’ll likely happen soon. I don’t think it will happen, though, because there are a lot of other fighters that bring less risk for Donaire and more money. He’s obviously going to follow the money and take the fight that makes the most financial dense.
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