Rigondeaux could fight on Pacquiao-Rios undercard on November 23rd

By Boxing News - 07/23/2013 - Comments

donaire#2By Chris Williams: With the possibility that his next fight could be ignored by HBO, WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8 KO’s) could be fighting on the November 23rd undercard of Manny Pacquiao vs. Brandon Rios in Macao, China, according to Dan Rafael.

Bob Arum of Top Rank said recently that HBO was cool to the idea of televising Rigondeaux’s next fight.

Rafael said on his social media site “Assuming HBO doesn’t change its stance on Rigondeaux, he likely will fight on the Pacquiao-Rios undercard.”

Rigondeaux recently defeated one of HBO’s most fighters in Nonito Donaire in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision last April in New York. It was thought that the win by Rigondeaux would pave his way to having all his future fights on HBO.

After all, he’d beaten one of their most popular guys in Donaire and made him look bad in the process. But instead of that happening, Rigondeaux could be ignored, if what Arum says is true about HBO not being interested in televising Rigondeaux’s fights.

HBO is still interested in televising Donaire’s fights. So in other words, HBO will be showing the loser of the Donaire-Rigondeaux fight instead of the winner to American fans. That’s pretty disappointing if you’re a boxing fan, because fans want to see the best fighters when watching HBO, not the second best.

If all Rigondeaux can get fighting on HBO on pay per view undercards, he could be very limited in getting seen by American fans unless Arum can stage enough PPV shows per year so that Rigondeaux can get all of his fights seen by U.S fans.

I’d rather see Rigondeaux than Donaire on HBO. I think Doniare is a good fighter, but he was pretty badly exposed by Rigondeaux if HBO is only going to give fans a choice between one of them, I’d take Rigondeaux every time because he’s the more skilled fighter. He’s not just winning on size the way that Donaire has been doing all these years by being much bigger than his opponents.



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