Donaire-Rigondeaux: Don’t be surprised if Guillermo ends this one early

By Boxing News - 03/27/2013 - Comments

rigondeaux6By Chris Williams: Much has been made of the power and the ability of WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) to end a fight early with one of his big right hooks to the head, but it looks like boxing fans and writers are forgetting the knockout power that Donaire’s April 13th opponent WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) has going for him.

There are eight fighters on Rigondeaux’s resume that can testify to the punching power that Rigondeaux has going for him, and unlike Donaire, Rigondeaux’s fights tend to end suddenly without warning.

Rigondeaux has a way of landing a hard body shot that ends the fight instantaneously. It doesn’t matter if his opponent has a steel chin and has never stopped from a head shot before. When Rigondeaux lands his body shots, it’s whole different world of pain for his opponents.

In looking at Donaire’s flabby looking midsection with slight folds of fat hanging off his sides, it seems pretty clear that he’s not been hit too often during his career to the body. In looking at the guys that Donaire has faced, you can tell the reason why immediately.

Donaire has faced exclusively head-hunters during his career. I don’t know how Top Rank has managed to avoid him facing body punchers up to this point in his career, but I got to give Bob Arum credit for doing a good job of just having him face head hunters.

On April 13th it’s going to be a whole different world for Donaire as he faces not only a body puncher in the ring, but the best body puncher in all of boxing when he faces Rigondeaux on HBO at the Radio City Music Hall, in New York, New York, USA. It’s hard to imagine Donaire facing someone that can go to the body with the kind of power that Rigondeaux does.

There’s no way to prepare for this fight if you’re Donaire other than to work on cardio so that he can run, and do a lot of sit ups in hopes that he can take some of the hard shots. But the location of where Rigondeaux is going to land of these shots and with the power he’s going to land them, it won’t matter that Donaire works on his flabby stomach muscles. He’s going to be in for a world of hurt in this fight unless he can get Rigondeaux out of there within one or two rounds.



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