By Dan Ambrose: It looks like HBO will only be showing just WBO super bantamweight Nonito Donaire’s fight on April 13th, and not any of the undercard fights, according to Dan Rafael. Thus far, there’s only one fight on the undercard with WBO super featherweight champion Roman Martinez facing a still to be determined opponent. It’s too bad Martinez isn’t facing Donaire because that would be an interesting fight.
It’s unclear why HBO is only televising Donaire’s fight on that night because generally at least two fights are shown, but perhaps HBO has something else going on with their programing on that night that will be getting in the way of the undercard.
Donaire will be facing either Vic Darchinyan or Guillermo Rigondeaux on April 13th. If you were to ask me who Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum will likely be picking for the fight, I’d have to say Darchinyan because he’s the easier fight to get made. It’s not the better fight, but it’s definitely the easier one.
It’s also the safer fight for Donaire because Rigondeaux is one of those fighters that can knock you out with a body shot, and no matter how hard you train it’s difficult to take the kinds of body shots that Rigondeaux throws. Donaire fought a mixture of older past their best fighters and paper champions and ex paper champions last year.
Rigondeaux would be a huge step up in class for Donaire, and it might be a good thing for that fight to happen just yet when Arum is trying to build Donaire into a big star. Darchinyan is a lot safer because he was already knocked out by Donaire six years ago, and he’s tailor made for him with the way he telegraphs his uppercuts from a mile away. Rigondeaux is the opposite of Darchinyan.
You just don’t know what punch Rigondeaux will throw because he’s a counter puncher, and he’s going to wait until Donaire throws something and then hit him with a knife-like left or right hand to the midsection. Donaire hasn’t been hit much in the midsection during his career, so this would potentially be a new experience for him if the Rigondeaux fight gets made.
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