By Dan Ambrose: WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-2, 20 KO’s) wanted to move up to the featherweight division after his fight with WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8 KO’s) and look to try and someone get a fight with Abner Mares (25-0, 13 KO’s).
That fight can still happen I guess, but I think Rigondeaux is much more deserving of that fight than Donaire at this point. Unfortunately, I don’t think Golden Boy Promotions are going to let Mares getting within 500 miles of Rigondeaux after the way he dominated Donaire tonight in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, New York.
Donaire couldn’t land anything tonight without getting immediately tagged in return by a sharp counter from Rigondeaux. After a while, Donaire stopped throwing as many punches because he kept getting countered. The only thing Donaire seemed to have any faith in was his jabs to the midsection. He was throwing a lot of those punches and still getting countered.
Mares would have been no better off than Donaire had he been in the ring with Rigondeaux tonight. Mares should consider himself lucky that he wasn’t the guy in the ring with him because I think it would been an even easier fight for Rigondeaux . Mares doesn’t have Donaire’s had speed and he would have walked into a lot of shots from Rigondeaux and ended up getting embarrassed.
Donaire often likes to bounce around and showboat against his opponents where he jumps from side to side and landing pot shots. Tonight, Donaire didn’t bother trying to do that because he seemed to realize if he tried to showboat he would have been clowned by the much faster Rigondeaux. It would have been fun to see Donaire try this because it would have given a sad picture of him trying to showboat when he’s getting totally dominated.
It’s interesting how this fight is seen so differently by people. Writers Dan Rafael and Kevin Iole both scored the fight 114-113 for Rigondeaux, but I don’t see how you could make a case where Donaire won any round other than the 10th round where he knocked Rigondeaux down. The other rounds saw Rigondeaux out land Donaire and make him miss constantly.
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