By Jeff Aranow: Former 4 division world champion Nonito Donaire (37-4, 24 KOs) is no longer with Top Rank, according to promoter Bob Arum. Donaire, 34, is officially free agent. Arum says that he didn’t have anything for Donaire right now in terms of big fights for the money that he was accustomed to getting in the past.
Donaire lost his WBO World super bantamweight title in his last fight to rising Top Rank star Jessie Magdaleno by a 12 round unanimous decision last November. Arum is going to try and turn the 25-year-old southpaw Magdaleno into a star. He’s a lot younger than Donaire, who will be turning 35 in November.
Despite Donaire’s ripe age, he’s still very powerful and dangerous for anyone in the 122lb division, including Magdaleno.
“Nonito, we had nothing big for him,” said Arum to Fighthub.com. “He’s gone to the Philippines, and he’s made a deal with a network to fight over in the Philippines. Yeah, we told him he can do that because when we have something for him against Oscar Valdez or Magdaleno later on, he can come back and we’ll offer him the fight. But we don’t have a fight for him in the interim for the purses that he’s used to,” said Arum.
Asking Donaire to fight against the unbeaten 26-year-old WBO World featherweight champion Oscar Valdez is probably not a good idea for the “Filipino Flash” at this point in his career. Unless the money is going to be out of this world good for Donaire against Valdez, it would be a better idea for him to stay at super bantamweight.
If Donaire could get a rematch with Magdaleno, he would have a decent chance of winning that fight. WBC champion Rey Vargas looks very hard to beat right now. That would be a tough fight for Donaire. Likewise, WBA champion Guillermo Rigondeaux would also be a tough fight for Donaire. Rigondeaux already beat Donaire easily in their fight in 2013. That was a long time ago, and Rigondeaux still looks very good.
Donaire was at the height of his boxing career when he fought Rigondeux. Since that fight, Donaire has had a long fall. His fights stopped being televised on HBO, and he’s not done a lot. In hindsight, you can argue that it probably wasn’t a good idea for Donaire to have taken the fight with Rigondeaux. Assuming if he had swerved the fight, Donaire likely would still be a world champion now.
The 5’5 ½” Donaire has already been shown to lack the size to fight at featherweight when he was stopped in the 6th round by Nicholas Walters three years ago in 2014. At the time, Donaire was the WBA Super World featherweight champion after beating Simpiwe Vetyeka by a 5th round technical decision victory in May 2014.
After Donaire’s loss to Walters, he moved back down to super bantamweight and captured the vacant WBO 122 lb. title in December 2015 in beating Cesar Juarez by a 12 round unanimous decision.
“Former four-division titleholder Filipino flash’s contract with Top Rank Boxing is now over and he is a free agent. #boxing,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.
WBC updates
WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder has been vocal about wanting to fight a unification match against WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker next if he gets past Hughie Fury in their fight on May 6. However, the World Boxing Council ordered Wilder to face new WBC mandatory challenger Bermane Stiverne next. For the 31-year-old Wilder to fight a unification against Parker, he’ll need to give the 38-year-old Stiverne a step aside payment. Wilder still hasn’t defended his WBC title against a mandatory challenger since he won the belt in 2015. It’s been two years already, and he’s defended the belt 5 times against voluntary challengers. None of them have been what you call tough opponents.
WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew has less than a week to let the WBC know whether he’ll be moving back down to the division to defend his title against the winner of the April 1 fight between Marco Huck and Mairis Briedis. Bellew just finished beating heavyweight David Haye by an 11th round TKO last Saturday night in London, England. The victory for Bellew has him on cloud nine, talking about wanting a big fight against one of the heavyweight champions. Bellew has even talked of retirement, although few boxing fans believe he’ll actually do that. There’s a lot of money for Bellew to make in a title shot.
WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson is supposed to be defending his title against his WBC mandatory challenger Eleider Alvarez next. However, the two fighters are expected to work out a deal to where Stevenson will be permitted to defend his title in a voluntary defense against Seanie Monaghan on April 29. After that fight, Stevenson will defend his title against Alvarez. Stevenson hasn’t defended against his mandatory since he stopped Tony Bellew back in 2013.
Anthony Dirrell and Callum Smith will be fighting for the vacant WBC super middleweight title in the spring. This is the title that Badou Jack recently vacated after his 12 round draw against IBF champion James DeGale. Jack has moved up to light heavyweight to campaign in that weight class. Jack is too big to continue to fight at super middleweight.
The WBC plans on ordering an eliminator to face the winner of the March 18 fight between WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs. Currently, Jorge Sebastian Heiland is the No.1 ranked WBC contender at 160. No.2 is Curtis Stevens. It would be interesting to see if the WBC selects someone else to face Heiland. There are some good fighters in the WBC’s rankings. Stevens has a fight this Saturday night against David Lemieux. If he can beat Lemieux, he’ll be in a good position to fight Heiland in the eliminator.
WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo will be defending his title against #1 WBC mandatory Charles Hatley next. The winner of that fight must face Erickson Lubin. That’s going to be a tough fight for Charlo to face Lubin, because he’s not a big puncher like his brother Jermall Charlo.
Shawn Porter and Andre Berto will be fighting each other on April 22 in a WBC 147 lb. title eliminator. The winner of the fight will be WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman’s mandatory challenger for his WBC belt. The current #1 WBC contender Amir Khan is being skipped over for the eliminator bout due to him having lost his last fight to Saul Canelo Alvarez at middleweight last May. Khan is also coming off of hand surgery, and he’s not available to fight Porter or Berto right now.
WBC light welterweight champion Terence Crawford will be defending his WBC title on May 20. The possible opponents are from this list: Amir Imam, Adrian Granados and Felix Diaz. It looks like Diaz won’t be the one that will get the fight, because Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum doesn’t seem excited about making that fight. Arum seems more interested in putting Crawford in with Imam or Granados. Both of those fighters are flawed and recently were beaten. It’s unclear why Arum wants to match Crawford against fighters that recently suffered defeats. Arum seems more interested in putting on a fight that the boxing fans will see an exciting one. In that case, Arum needs to impress upon Crawford the importance of him staying in the pocket and not moving as much, because he used a lot of movement in his fights against John Molina Jr. and Vickor Postol.