By Chris Williams: If Nonito Donaire wants a chance to avenge his loss to WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux in 2014, then he’s going to need to agree to a rehydration limit of 135 lbs. Rigondeaux is willing to come up and fight Donaire in his own weight class at featherweight, but he doesn’t agree to be fighting a light welterweight Donaire with him weighing in excess of 135 lbs.
Rigondeaux is willing to let Donaire rehydrate from the featherweight limit of 126 all the way to the lightweight upper limit at 135. That’s 9 pounds that Rigondeaux is willing to give Donaire, but he doesn’t want to fight Donaire if he rehydrates into the light welterweight division at over 135. That’s too much weight for Rigondeaux, who fights right at 122 lbs. He doesn’t rehydrate into the 130s and definitely not in the 140s.
Rigondeaux’s manager Gary Hyde said via RingTV “Rigo will fight any 122 or 126 fighter once we can agree that they will not weight over 135 on fight night.”
What Donaire agree to this rehydration limit or what he see it as too constricting for him by holding him from being able to rehydrate to whatever weight that he wants to? If Donaire rehydrates more than 9 points in the featherweight division then he probably needs to think seriously about moving up to lightweight, because that’s a lot of weight to be putting on after a weigh-in.
I have a feeling that Donaire will say no to Rigondeaux telling him that he can’t rehydrate past 135, because it would potentially keep Donaire below his natural weight, whatever that is. For his bout against Vic Darcyinyan last November, Donaire looked like a light welterweight in the ring with the smallish Darchinyan. Eventually Donaire’s size advantage played a part in him chopping Darchinyan down in the 9th round in stopping him.
If Donaire really wants to avenge the loss to Rigondeaux, then he’ll agree to the rehydration limit. But if Donaire was never eager to fight him again in the first place then the requested rehydration limit will be used as a potential excuse, among others, for not fighting him. It depends on whether Donaire wants to avenge his loss or not.
Rigondeaux looked good in beating Joseph Agbeko last Saturday night by a 12 round decision. It was a good win, but the fight didn’t draw well on HBO. The Rigondeaux-Agbeko fight drew only 550,000 viewers on HBO, according to Dan Rafael. Obviously, those aren’t good numbers, but it’s not entirely Rigondeaux’s fault.
Bob Arum should have known better than to match Rigondeaux with the ring rusty Agbeko, who came into the fight having lost 3 out of his last 4 fights. Had it been a good opponent that Rigondeaux was facing, he might have been able to draw good numbers.
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