Donaire vs. Rigondeaux a done deal for April 13th!

By Boxing News - 02/08/2013 - Comments

donaire332By Dan Ambrose: A unification fight between WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) and WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigonsdeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) is a done deal for April 13th in New York, according to Gabriel Montoya of Maxboxing.com.

The fight has been agreed upon and the contracts signed. The VADA [Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency] will be testing both fighters for this bout.

The negotiations took time because Rigondeaux had some things holding him up from his side in terms of his management, but at the end of the day he decided to take the fight. It was a wise decision because if he can beat Donaire then he’ll have a lot of opportunities available to him for bigger paydays starting with a rematch against Donaire. There’s no way Donaire would walk away from a defeat. He’ll fight Rigondeaux again if he loses, and you expect Rigondeaux to get a much better deal the second time around.

This is going to be a really good test to see how good Donaire is because he’s mostly fought aggressive smaller guys with that have come right at him. Rigondeaux is another smaller fighter, to be sure, but he’s a pure counter puncher and he’s good at making his opponents pay when they load up. Donaire’s entire game is build up on loading up on his left hook to nail guys that come right at him.

If Rigondeaux can take Donaire’s left hook, like Omar Narvaez did, Donaire is a much more limited fighter. At that point Donaire might have to run around the ring like he did against Rafael Concepcion, when he took Donaire’s left hook away from him. Donaire took a lot of punishment in that fight because Conception was able to block and/or duck Donaire’s wild left hooks.

Rigondeaux will test Donaires ability to take body shots in this fight, and if he fails that test then we’ll see Rigondeaux walk out of the ring with Donaire’s World Boxign Organization title.

A lot of boxing fans are going to be surprised that Donaire agreed to fight Rigondeaux because Donaire has been fighting over the hill fighters lately in bouts against Jorge Arce and Toshiaki Nishioka, who Donaire for some reason claimed was the best fighter in the super bantamweight division.



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