By Chris Williams: IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) pretty much told the boxing world last night that he’s not going to be fighting WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux any time soon, if ever, after Donaire defeated a faded 36-year-old Toshiaki Nishioka (39-5-3, 24 KO’s) by a 9th round TKO at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.
Nishioka was the fighter that Donaire had been saying was the best super bantamweight in the division, and after the fight Donaire was sticking to that believe despite Nishioka only averaging a little over 20 punches thrown per round in a textbook example of a fighter not really trying to win.
When interviewed after the fight by Max Kellerman of HBO, who asked Donaire why he won’t fight Rigondeaux, Donaire said “At this point I got the guy who I thought was the best in the division and that was Nishioka. Anybody who wants it, lets go. If we can’t make it happen, then I want to move up from the division. That’s up to Bob and HBO. He [Rigondeaux] needs more guys for me to get excited. I have to be excited about the fight or else I’m going to get bored like you’ve seen in the last few fights. This fight I was so aware, so focused. I know what this guy has and I want to feel that in the ring that this guy is challenging me, and I have confidence that this guy is a good fighter. They have to prove themselves for me to go at it.”
So in other words, Donaire is saying he’s going to move up to featherweight if he can’t get a big fight at super bantamweight. However, given there are only two guys at super bantamweight – Rigondeaux and Abner Mares – that you could call big fights for Donaire, it looks like Donaire is going to be moving up in weight real soon to the featherweight division. Donaire’s not going to fight Rigondeaux because he claims that he needs more experience for him to get excited about righting him. Rigondeaux has fought 11 times as a pro, but he’s proved himself worthy of fighting Donaire simply by easily beating WBA super bantamweight champion Rico Ramos. But Donaire seems to have put Rigondeaux in a no win situation for a fight with him by saying he’s going to be moving up in weight real soon if he can’t get an important fight, but he’s not going to be fighting Rigondeaux because he lacks experience. By the time Rigondeaux gets that experience, Donaire will likely be long gone from the division. There’s pretty much nothing Rigondeaux can do because he’s in a bind with Donaire saying he’ll be moving up in weight soon.
What’s interesting about Donaire saying he has to be excited about fighting a guy for him to fight him is that he’s taken on guys like Jeffrey Mathebula and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. recently. How could Donaire get excited about fighting Mathebula when he’d never really beaten a big name, unless you call Takalani Ndlovu as a big name and he barely beat that guy. Mathebula had lost to Ndlovu and Celestino Caballero before fighting Donaire. So Mathebula may have had more experience in terms of pro bouts compared to Rigondeaux but his experience was against mostly 2nd and 3rd tier opposition. So why was Donaire excited about fighting Mathebula and not Rigondeaux? Was it because Mathebula had a title? Well, Rigondeaux has a title, so why isn’t Donaire excited about fighting him? Rigondeaux has much more experience than Donaire with over 400 amateur fights and two Olympic gold medals for Cuba.
Doesn’t that count for experience? I’ve never seen such a weaker excuse than what Donaire is making for not wanting to fight Rigondeaux. The guy is unbeaten, a world champion, and a former two time Olympic gold medalist, and Donaire is saying he’s not excited about fighting him because he lacks experience? That sounds like an excuse to me. Why fight Mathebula then?
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