By Chris Williams: Nonito Donaire’s win over #1 WBO Cesar Juarez earlier this month has given him some ideas to try and avenge his loss from two years ago against Guillermo Rigondeaux. Donaire won back the WBO super bantamweight title on December 11th this month with his 12 round decision victory over Juarez.
This is the same WBO title that Donaire lost to Rigondeaux in 2013. Rigondeaux was stripped of the WBO title after he was unable to get an opponent for 11 months. It was interesting that Donaire was able to win back the WBO title by facing a lesser fighter in Juarez instead of having to go through Rigondeaux to try and win back that title.
The question is if Donaire really wanted the WBO title, then why didn’t he try and win back the title against Rigondeaux instead of waiting for him to be stripped of the title by the World Boxing Organization?
“I’m always open for that. Again, I always said this to everybody else,” Donaire said to RingTV.com. “In order for him to convince me that he’s better than me, he has to do it twice. I will most likely give him the same option, so I’m always down for that.”
Donaire is talking boldly, but his promoters at Top Rank are the ones that match him. He can talk about wanting to fight Rigondeaux again, but if they’re not willing to make that fight happen, then all Donaire’s talk is little more than a bunch of useless words. Recently, there’s been talk about Top Rank wanting to match Donaire against Top Rank fighter Evgeny Gradovich in Donaire’s first defense of his WBO 122lb title.
If that’s the fight that Top Rank wants for Donaire, then it’s highly unlikely that Donaire will wind up fighting a rematch against Rigondeaux. Gradovich recently lost his IBF featherweight title to Lee Selby, and Top Rank needs a fight for Gradovich. What better way to keep both of their fighters busy than to match them against each other in an in house fight.
Rigondeaux isn’t with Top Rank, so you’ve got to figure that there’s little chance of him getting a second shot at fighting Donaire. Rigondeaux did a number on Donaire’s career 2013 in beating him. Donaire went from being the 2012 ‘Fighter of the Year’ to just a struggling fighter losing to Nicholas Walters by a 6th round knockout, and looking bad in fights against Simpiwe Vetyeka and Vic Darchinyan.
“I didn’t train as hard as I should; I didn’t study any fights as I should,” Donaire said. “In the fight, I’ve seen so many mistakes that I should’ve capitalized on but the reason that I couldn’t is that the muscle memory that I created in training was just the left hook and that’s the only thing that I knew how to throw.”
At 33, Donaire looks like he’s starting to slip as a fighter. He had to battle very hard to beat Juarez this month, and there are without question better fighters in the division than that guy.
It’s unclear what Top Rank’s goals are for Donaire, but if they risk putting him in with the winner of the Carl Frampton vs. Scott Quigg fight, I think it’ll go badly for Donaire. Even against the loser of that fight, I see Donaire losing to that fighter. I don’t think Rigondeaux would even be considered for a fraction of a second by Top Rank for Donaire. It’s doubtful they’ll let Rigondeaux spoil Donaire’s new title reign by letting him beat him a second time.
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