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Nonito Donaire defeated by Guillermo Rigondeaux in battle for super bantamweight supremacy

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In an upset victory, WBA super bantamweight world champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8KO’s) defeated WBO and Ring Magazine champion Nonito Donaire (31-2, 20KO’s) by unanimous decision Saturday night from Radio City Music Hall in New York City, unifying the 122-pound division.

The southpaw Rigondeaux, 32, started the fight fast and was able to land clean punches on Donaire, 30, without being hit with anything effective in the first half of the fight.

The Filipino-American Donaire seemed reluctant to throw punches due to the power punching counter shots coming back at him.

With 400 short distance amateur fights to his credit, it was half expected that Rigondeaux would tire and let Donaire take control down the stretch of the 12 round championship fight.

On this night it was the Cuban two-time Olympic gold medalist Rigondeaux who dictated the action, often putting the crowd to sleep with his movement and unwillingness to engage. In doing this, he controlled the fight and landed the right hook and straight left hand pretty much at will when he chose to do so.

While Rigondeaux was fighting the perfect fight, Donaire came out like a bull in the tenth round willing to trade punch for punch and dropped the Cuban with a left hook early in the round.

With the knockdown Donaire tried to fight his way back into the bout, but still appeared reluctant to let his hands go while Rigondeaux effectively countered and moved.

In the final round, Donaire hoped to close the fight big but was stunned by a big Rigondeaux flurry that seemingly closed the right eye of Donaire.

With his eye closed, Donaire fought the remainder of the final round on his bicycle with his right hand high, protecting his eye.

Seldom throwing the fight hand, he fought much of the twelfth round with just his left hand as Rigondeaux tee’d off on him.

The final judges scores were 114-113, 115-112 and 116-112 for the unified super bantamweight world champion Rigondeaux.

For Rigondeaux, the win truly solidifies him as an elite level professional boxer. While his skills as a boxer were never doubted, he has now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt he made the correct adjustments from the amateur to professional style of boxing.

In defeat, Donaire can rest much of the blame on himself, as he noted prior to the bout his training camp was not ideal.

Before one of the toughest challenges of his career, Donaire was not only awaiting the birth of his child, but was often not in contact with longtime coach Robert Garcia, as Garcia was in training camp with lightweight Brandon Rios. Whether a bad training camp made a difference against a fighter like Rigondeaux remains to be seen.

Keep checking back with Ringside Report.

Follow me on Twitter @LevJackson or email me at lev-jackson[at]hotmail.com



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