De La Hoya: Donaire should have taken the $3 million offer to fight Mares

By Boxing News - 04/14/2013 - Comments

donaire555By Allan Fox: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya couldn’t resist kicking sand in the face of former WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire today after learning of his 12 round unanimous decision loss to WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8 KO’s) by saying that Donaire should have accepted the huge $3 million offer made by Golden Boy to Donaire to face their fighter WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares.

Donaire received only $1.32 million for his fight against Rigondeaux and only has a loss to show for it. The Mares fight not only would have given Donaire a much bigger payday but it was a much better match-up for him because Mares is a come forward type of fighter like the ones that he typically does well against.

De La Hoya said on his twitter site: “You [Donaire] should have taken the $3 million. I guess @SHOsports does have the best 122lbs after all. @abnermares00.”

I don’t agree that Mares is the best fighter at 122. He’s not even fighting in that weight class anymore after vacating his WBC super bantamweight title and moving up to featherweight to face WBC featherweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon on May 4th on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Robert Guerrero fight card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I rate Rigondeaux as a much better fighter than Mares, and I think that would be a one-sided fight because Mares wouldn’t be able to land his shots. Donaire would likely knock Mares out if that fight were to be made.

It’s too bad that Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum didn’t accept the $3 million offer from Golden Boy because now it’s too late. They’re not going to offer big money to Donaire now that he’s been exposed by Rigondeaux, and of course they’re not going to offer Rigondeaux anything because he’s more trouble than he’s worth.

It would be a courageous thing for Golden Boy to do if they were to match Mares with Rigondeaux, but they tend to be really careful with their star fighters when matching them, and they’re not going to want to match Mares against a fighter like Rigondeaux. I’m sure if they did, Arum would say yes in a heartbeat to that fight because he would have nothing to lose and everything to gain from such a fight.



Comments are closed.