By Chris Williams: WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) will be making his best payday of his career tonight when he gets a guaranteed $750,000 for his unification fight against WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, New York. For his part, Donaire will make $1.32 million
For Rigondeaux, he can guarantee himself a big payday if he defeats Donaire because there’s no way that Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum will let Donaire move on from this fight if he gets beaten. He almost has to put him back in with Rigondeaux because Donaire will be a tainted fighter if and when Rigondeaux knocks him out or decisions him tonight in their fight on HBO.
Rigondeaux has been cool, calm and collective during the entire run-up for the fight. A nervous looking Donaire tried a bit of gamesmanship at the weigh-in last Friday night in trying to get Rigondeaux psyched out during their stare down, but it didn’t work. Rigondeaux remained as cool as a cucumber while Donaire ended up breathing heavily like he was panting.
The name of the game tonight for Rigondeaux is to take away Donaire’s primary weapon his left hook by keep his right hand high to pick it up and drill him with left hooks down the pipe to the body and head. Rigondeaux can’t afford to get hit too many times with Donaire’s left hooks because he won’t last long if that happens.
Donaire will likely come into the ring weighing close to 135 tonight, if not more and that’s going to make it really tough on Rigondeaux if he starts getting hit a lot. Unlike Donaire, Rigondeaux doesn’t rehydrate very much. In fact, he walks around at 122, the weight for the class, so he’s not going to be putting any weight on after the weigh-in.
Rigondeaux needs to go for Donaire’s soft midsection because in looking at him yesterday at the weigh-in, Donaire had flab on his belly and sides and there was an absence of muscle tone as if he hadn’t trained this part of his body very much.
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