By Chris Williams: WBA Super World featherweight champion Nonito Donaire (33-2, 21 KOs) says he hasn’t closed the book on a rematch with WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (14-0, 9 KOs) despite Donaire having moved up in weight to the featherweight division and picked up a world title in that division.
Donaire says he’s still interested in avenging his loss to the Cuban fighter if the fight can be put together. Donaire blames the defeat to Rigondeaux on him having not trained like he should have done, and by overlooking him.
How he could have overlooked a 2-time Olympic gold medalist like Rigondeaux is the thing that’s hard to understand. Why would Donaire overlook a fighter as talented as Rigondeaux?
“It’s [Rigondeaux fight] not a closed chapter if we can make the fight happen,” Donaire said to esnewsreporting.com. “It was a learning experience that taught me to start training and to not take anyone lightly. If we could make that happen that would be the only time we could make it close to 122.”
Donaire has been talking about wanting to fight Rigondeaux again ever since he was beaten, but instead he’s faced 38-year-old Vic Darchinyan and Simpiwe Vetyeka since that time and not gotten close to facing Rigondeaux. In his fight with Vetyeka, Donaire beat him for his world title in a 5-round fight that was halted due to Donaire having suffered a cut over his left eye.
The fight was basically even at the time of the stoppage, but the three judges had Donaire up 49-46, 49-46 and 49-46. The fight took place in Macao, China. It has got to be the strangest way I’ve ever seen a world champion lose his title to someone. Up until that fight, I’d never seen a world champion lose a fight in the early rounds where his opponent suffered a cut, causing the fight to go to the cards.
Donaire said after the fight was over that he’d definitely be giving Vetyeka a rematch because he didn’t want to win a world title in that way, but since then there’s been talk of Donaire instead looking to WBA regular featherweight champion Nicholas Walters, who is also promoted by Top Rank.
As for Vetyeka, it looks like he’s out of luck in having lost his world title by a 5 round decision. It’s obviously a sad way for a world champion to lose his title, especially with him being 33 and not a young guy.
It’s hard to believe that Donaire will ever give Rigondeaux a rematch. Top Rank is steering Donaire in another direction. If they weren’t putting Donaire back in with Rigondeaux while he was one of Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters, it’s highly unlikely that Rigondeaux will ever get another fight against Donaire now that he’s no longer with Top Rank.
“Whoever has a belt…for anyone else that wants to make it happen,” I’m down for it,” Donaire said. “I know Walters is down for it. I know [Vasyl] Lomachenko is a good fight. We should do a tournament.”
I’d be very surprised if Arum matched Donaire against Lomachenko, because that’s a fight that would likely be as one-sided as the Donaire-Rigondeaux fight was. Donaire has the much bigger fan base than Lomachenko in the U.S and in the Philippines. I doubt Arum is going to let Lomachenko get a fight against him, because it would mess of a potential pawn piece for him that he can use for his Macao, China fight cards.
Donaire is an instrumental fighter that Arum can use to help open up the Chinese markets to pay-per-view. If Donaire gets whipped by Lomachenko or Rigondeaux, it might mess up his ability to sell his fights on PPV in China.
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