By Chris Williams: Robert Garcia, the trainer for WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s), doesn’t expect Nonito to have any problems at all in beating Cuban WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) next month on April 13th at the Radio City Music Hall, in New York, New York, USA.
Garcia sees Donaire stopping Rigondeaux in one or two rounds, and he says learned not to make a big deal out of Donaire’s opponents after Donaire stopped a heavily hyped – but much smaller – Fernando Montiel in two rounds two years ago in February 2011.
Montiel, 5’4”, Jorge Arce and Rigondeaux are all about the same height and reach, and all gave up close to three inches in height to the 5’7” Donaire.
Garcia said to Radio Raheem “I think it’s [Donaire-Rigondeaux] a great fight on paper, but I don’t think it’s going to be his toughest, no. We thought Montiel was going to be his toughest, but look what happened. So we could have the same thing again…he’ll end it in one or two rounds if he can. It could go into the later rounds, but I have no doubts that Nonito will win convincingly.”
Garcia is making a big mistake to compare Rigondeaux with Montiel. There’s nothing that the two have in common aside from their height, weight, and reach. Rigondeaux is a lot faster than Montiel, and he’s a southpaw counter-puncher that focuses mostly on throwing to the body.
Montiel is not a counter puncher, he doesn’t get his knockouts by going to the body, he’s not a southpaw and he’s not a defensive fighter like Rigondeaux. It’s apples and oranges we’re talking here.
It’s like Garcia saying that the Earth is the same as the moon because we’re located nearby. Whatever happens in the Rigondeaux-Donaire fight, it won’t be anything like the Donaire-Montiel fight. Rigondeaux is too quick, too hard to hit and too careful to get hit by one of Donaire’s badly telegraphed left hooks.
Instead of making bold predictions for Donaire, Garcia should be trying to teach him how to throw his right hand with more power because all he has is his left hook. His right hand is nothing, and Rigondeaux has nothing to worry about with that punch. I’m surprised that Garcia didn’t start comparing Rigondeaux to Toshiaki Nishioka because as off the wall as he was with the Montiel comparison, I expected him to bring up another irrelevant opponent to justify his views about Donaire beating Rigondeaux.
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