By Chris Williams: With Bob Arum of Top Rank choosing to steer his fighter Nonito Donaire towards a rematch against Vic Darchinyan, Gary Hyde, the manager for WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8 KO’s), is targeting the following super bantamweights for Rigondeaux to fight next according to Fightnews: Carl Frampton, Abner Mares, Joseph Agbeko, Akifumi Shimodo, and Vic Darchinyan.
Arum told Dan Rafael yesterday that HBO isn’t interested in televising Rigondeaux’s bout. However, they are interested in televising Donaire’s next fight against Darchinyan in November. Why is HBO televising Donaire’s fight and not Rigondeaux’s fight? HBO has things backwards. It’s supposed to be the winner that has his fights televised, not the loser.
As far as the Donaire-Darchinyan fight goes, Donaire already knocked him out in the 5th round in 2007, and Darchinyan hasn’t done anything to make a rematch between them an appealing option because Darchinyan has been beaten three times in the last three years. They might as well have him fighting on ESPN rather than HBO with that many defeats.
Frampton’s promoter likely won’t match him against Rigondeaux there are easier options for him as far as going after a world title. A fight between Frampton and Rigondeaux is an automatic loss for Frampton.
Agbeko has fought only once in the past two years since Showtime’s bantamweight tournament ended, beating Luis Melendez by a 12 round unanimous decision. Agbeko has lost two out of his last three fights. It’s not an appealing option because he’s not done much to redeem himself from his two defeats to Abner Mares.
Darchinyan is 37, and after he loses to Donaire in November then there won’t be any point in taking the fight with him. The only thing Rigondeaux would prove in fighting Darchinyan after that is to show he can beat him even easier than Donaire likely will.
Rigondeaux won’t be able to get a fight against Mares because of the Golden Boy vs. Top Rank thing. Rigondeaux is with Top Rank, and Mares with Golden Boy. That fight isn’t going to happen.
Shimodo isn’t a good choice. Few boxing fans have ever heard of his name in the U.S, and he was previously stopped in the 7th round by one of Rigondeaux’s knockout victims Rico Ramos. Shimodo would have to be the worst choice of the list of opponents.
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