Rigondeaux could be back on HBO in November

By Boxing News - 07/15/2013 - Comments

rigondeaux00By Chris Williams: WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8 KO’s) may not be off of HBO after all. Last week, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said that he’d received little interest from HBO executives when he mentioned putting Rigondeaux back on the network following his 12 round unanimous decision win over the popular HBO fighter Nonito Donaire last April.

Arum how apparently has convinced the HBO top brass to let Rigondeaux possibly fight on the undercard of WBO featherweight champion Mikey Garcia’s next fight, according to Steve Kim at Maxboxing. That’s not what you’d ideally want given Rigondeaux’s big win over Donaire. You would think he would deserve a top billing, but that’s not going to happen.

Rigondeaux would be the co-feature bout on Mikey’s undercard. If that’s being done to set up a potential fight between Rigondeaux and Mikey in the near future then I think it’s great. However, it’s doubtful that Arum will let Rigondeaux anywhere near Mikey after having been burned by Rigondeaux once with his win over the popular Donaire.

If Arum were to let Rigondeaux in with Mikey, we could see the same thing because Mikey is another big punching fighter that loads up on his shots the same way that Donaire does, but with less hand speed.

Arum said to Steve Kim “No, it’s my pressure. I’ve talked with them [HBO]. I explained to Ken [Hershman] and to Peter Nelson and they agree with me that Rigondeaux’s a major talent and I think the public will be interested in watching him fight.”

Rigondeaux is only the best fighter in the super bantamweight division, and you can probably throw in the bantamweight as well as the featherweight division as well. I think Rigondeaux beats Mikey, Chris John, Abner Mares, Evgeny Gradovich, and Anselmo Moreno.

It would have been sad had HBO turned their back on Rigondeaux after he beat Donaire, while still showing Donaire’s fights. That’s the opposite of how things normally done. When a fighter beats a top guy as convincingly as Rigondeaux did against Donaire, that fighter should still have his fights televised by HBO. It would be wacky if Donaire’s fights continued to be televised but not the guy that beat him in Rigondeaux.



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