By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is still supposedly interested in matching his fighter WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) against WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) in Donaire’s next fight, according to Steven Kim.
Kim said on his twitter “Bob Arum says it’s still his plan to match NDonaire with GRigo [Rigondeaux] next. But after AMares takes care of his WBC mandatory….He will offer Golden Boy and Mares a ”substantial sum” to face Donaire, later.(Assuming, I think, Donaire beats Rigo).”
I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Arum still looks to match Donaire up against Mares even if Donaire loses to Rigondeaux. We’ve seen Arum match some of his fighters against big names even with them coming off of losses. Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey are perfect examples of that. Arum matched Clottey against Manny Pacquiao after Clottey had lost his previous fight to Miguel Cotto, and then Arum put Margarito in with Cotto after Margarito had been badly beaten up by Pacquiao.
In a perfect world, Arum would match Rigondeaux up with Mares if Rigondeaux were to beat Donaire, but I don’t see that happening, and I doubt Arum would take a chance of putting Donaire back in with for a second fight if Donaire can’t beat him on the first attempt.
A fight between Donaire and Rigondeaux makes too much sense, because it’s a unification bout, and it would easily be the best fighter that Donaire has faced in his entire career. I know Donaire has been in with a shot Toshiaki Nishioka and Jorge Arce, as well as the hard hitting Vic Darchinyan, but I don’t see any of those guys being in the same class as Rigondeaux.
A Rigondeaux-Donaire fight will be exciting for boxing fans, and best of all, at least for Arum’s sake; the fight is an in house Top Rank fight. Arum wouldn’t have to work with any other promoter in making this fight happen.
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