Donaire vs. Rigondeaux fight announcement on Thursday, February 21st

By Boxing News - 02/20/2013 - Comments

donaire9By Chris Williams: The April 13th unification bout between WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) and WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) will be announced this week on Thursday, February 21st.

The Donaire-Rigondeaux fight announcement will be streamed live at http://www.toprank.com/livestream at 12p ET/9a PT on Thursday.

Yesterday, Donaire made a huge production about the VADA testing that he was worried Rigondeaux was going to dodge for the fight. Rigondeaux, however, agreed to the testing and the fight is now back on. Hopefully, Donaire doesn’t have any other issues that come up to keep him from taking this fight because some boxing fans feel he really doesn’t want to take the fight due to the huge danger Rigondeaux presents to him.

Donaire has destroyed his last two opponents, Jorge Arce and Toshiaki Nishioka, after struggling against the younger Jeffrey Mathebula and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. last year. Donaire did a good job against the aging, past their best Nishioka and Arce, but Rigondeaux is going to be the toughest opponent for Donaire yet.

He’s definitely a couple levels above the likes of Arce and Nishioka, even though Donaire said Nishioka was the best fighter in the division last year. Clearly, Nishioka wasn’t even close to being the best. The best in the division may very well be Rigondeaux, and we’ll see what Donaire can with against this hard hitting and incredibly fast fighter.

Rigondeaux struggled at times in beating his last opponent Robert Marroquin in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision last September. However, Marroquin, 5’8”, is one of the hugest fighters in the super bantamweight division with a long reach and good power. Rigondeaux looked like he was facing a light welterweight in the ring that night.

After getting shaken up by Marroquin on a couple of occasions earlier in the fight, Rigondeaux settled down and easily out-boxed him the remainder of the way. Marroquin is a bigger and stronger fighter than Donaire. If Rigondeaux was able to neutralize Marroquin’s power than you can only imagine what he can do to Donaire if he’s able to take Donaire’s left hand away from him.



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