By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum reportedly will be revealing who his fighter WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire will be facing on April 13th by the end of this week. There’s talk that Arum will be finally giving WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux a chance at fighting Donaire by letting him have the shot rather than the 37-year-old Vic Darchinyan.
As for the Donaire vs. WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares fight negotiations that have been talked about, Arum says that fight can’t happen because the contract Golden Boy Promotions sent over has a number of items that Arum isn’t happy with. According to the Manila Standard, Arum isn’t happy with the date that Golden Boy wants for the fight.
Arum says Donaire can’t fight in June because he needs to be with his pregnant wife. Arum also says a Mares-Donaire fight could only take place on HBO, not on Showtime, the network that televises Mares fights. Additionally, Arum points out that the contract has a liability problem that would essentially allow Golden Boy to talk away if the fight doesn’t take place.
Arum feels that this will enable them to get out of the contract if they figure out that the fight isn’t going to generate the revenue to cover the huge $3 million contract offer made to Donaire.
If the excuse about the network remains a problem for Arum in the future then it’s pretty much an impossibility that a fight between Donaire and Mares can ever get made until the two fighters are with the same network. Can that happen? It’s possible but by the time it does happen, I think Donaire won’t be the same fighter he is now. He’s 31, and it’s hard to imagine him still fighting on the same level he is now in three or four years when his speed starts dropping off. Besides that, Donaire will likely be moving up to featherweight and super featherweight, and unless Mares follows after him, the fight won’t be made.
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