Rachel: Donaire had problems getting below the 130s in training camp

By Boxing News - 04/17/2013 - Comments

donaire012By Chris Williams: Nonito Donaire’s wife Rachel say that he could be back in the fall, but not at super bantamweight. He’ll be moving up to 126 to fight in the featherweight division following his 12 round unanimous decision loss to WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux last Saturday night. Rachel told ESPN that he struggled badly to get down from the 130s during training camp for the fight. I have a feeling that 126 might not be a weight that he can make either without struggle.

Donaire may have to move up to 130 and campaign as a lightweight if he really wants to avoid having to battle with his weight because he’s a huge fighter that looks the same size as Adrien Broner.

Speaking with Michael Wood at NYfightblog at espn.go.com, Rachel said “That style of fighting [for Rigondeaux] is mostly for purist fans, which is something of a dying breed. He [Rigondeaux] can fight that way his whole career, that’s fine, but that’s not what a lot of fans want.”

It sounds like Rachel is making an excuse for Donaire’s loss by saying Rigondeaux’s fighting style isn’t a crowd-pleasing style. I don’t see how that’s an excuse for what Donaire lost the fight. The name of the game is to hit and not get hit, and that’s how you win fights and keep the titles in your possession.

Everyone knows that champions make more money than non-champions, even if it’s not a particularly popular champion. So then should Rigondeaux have fought Donaire’s fight just so that it would be crowd pleasing? That doesn’t make sense if you’re Rigondeaux because he clearly was the smaller fighter last Saturday night, so why should he slug it out with Donaire just to make boxing fans happy when it would mean that he might lose the fight?

I’m not sure if Donaire’s wife is seeing it from that angle or not. Why fight a much bigger guys’ fight when you’ve got the option available to you to make him look bad by using your speed to elude his punches? Who cares what Donaire’s wife or his promoter Bob Arum care about the fight not being interesting to watch.

They obviously wanted Rigondeaux to slug with Donaire, but why would he when the guy looked like a lightweight out there last Saturday compared to Rigondeaux. I thought Donaire looked at least 10 to 15 pounds heavier than Rigondeaux, and standing in front of a much heavier and stronger puncher like Donaire all night long would have been a stupid thing for Rigondeaux to do.

The hit and not be hit fighting style sure hasn’t hurt Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he’s probably the most popular fighter in boxing today. I don’t think Arum knows what he’s got in Rigondeaux and if he’s not happy with how he fought last Saturday night then he needs to terminate his contract and let him sign with Golden Boy Promotions. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to get a fighter like Rigondeaux and I can see them making a huge star out of him in a short period of time.



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