By Chris Williams: Respected trainer Freddie Roach sees this Saturday’s unification showdown between WBA World junior middleweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) and WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) as a 50-50 that could go either way.
Roach, unlike a lot of people that have drank the Donaire kool-aid, sees this as a fight that truly is a tossup fight. Roach knows how good Rigondeaux is because he briefly trained him and saw how good he was during that time. Roach has seen a lot of Donaire and he knows enough that he doesn’t have an advantage in this fight except for perhaps his huge size for the weight class.
Roach said to espn “It’s a tossup, 50-50. Whoever lands the most clean punches. … It’ll be a thinking-man’s fight, with both countering. I see someone being knocked down; I’m not sure which one. I’m down the middle that one.”
This probably doesn’t please Donaire’s fans much because many of them see Donaire as unbeatable and they haven’t wondered why he seemed to drag his heels the last year when Rigondeaux was trying to get a fight with him. They didn’t say anything when Donaire kept fighting older guys like Toshiaki Nishioka and Jorge Arce instead of the in his prime Rigondeaux.
These fans didn’t say anything when Donaire fought little Omar Narvaez, a super flyweight or little known Jeffrey Mathebula or Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., who had recently been knocked out at the time that Donaire fought him. Maybe Donaire’s fans hadn’t done their homework about his opponents and didn’t realize they weren’t in the same class as Rigondeaux.
Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter anymore because Donaire is finally facing Rigondeaux and he’s going to have to beat a guy that’s not old, not mediocre, not coming off of a long layoff and not coming off of a knockout loss.
Rigondeaux is in his prime and Donaire is going to have some serious problems in this fight if he can’t raise his game another level because the Donaire that beat Mathebula, Vazquez Jr., Narvarez, Arce and Nishioka isn’t good enough to compete with Rigondeaux in my view. That’s a mismatch because Donaire is too crude and he telegraphs every punch he throws like a lot of fighters that have fallen in love with their left hook. Rigondeaux is going to take that weapon away and use it against Donaire by hitting him with body shots every time he tries to throw it.
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