At least Donaire can say he won the stare-down against Rigondeaux

By Boxing News - 04/16/2013 - Comments

donaire#12By Chris Williams: Former WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-2, 20 KO’s) may have been beaten soundly by WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8 KO’s) last Saturday night in New York, but at least Donaire can say he beat Rigondeaux in their stare downs in the week of the fight.

Donaire took great pride in out-staring Rigondeaux during the final press conference with him followed by the weigh-in the day before the fight. Indeed, I’ve never seen a fighter take as much satisfaction of winning a stare down as Donaire did because he was really blowing his own horn about it. I got the sense that he felt the fight was won after the stare down.

Donaire called it a “moral victory” that he was able to stare Rigondeaux down and he even crouched down several inches so that he could be the same height as the 5’4” Rigondeaux during their stare down at the weigh-in and pointed to his eyes, as if telling Rigondeaux to stare him in the eyes. This was Donaire at his best, out-staring Rigondeaux and then gloating about it afterwards like the fight was already in the bag.

I knew then that Donaire was in deep, deep trouble because he was putting too much emphasis on trying to gain a psychological edge in staring down Rigondeaux instead of being calm and looking at it as a meaningless ritual that has to be done. I saw it as real worry going on with Donaire and then to hear him talking about it afterwards, it came across loud and clear that he had major concerns about the fight.

Donaire is very good at staring down his opponents. I thought he did a splendid job of staring holes through Rigondeaux last week, but unfortunately staring down an opponent doesn’t mean anything. It’s what you do in the ring that counts, and Donaire didn’t have the talent to compete with Rigondeaux.

Donaire was missing with almost everything he threw in the fight and his final connect percentage was an anemic 23% out of 352 punches thrown. That’s terrible.



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