When promoter Gary Shaw came right out and said Saturday on Showtime that there’s no way he’ll let Vic Darchinyan fight Nonito Donaire Jr., he was only repeating information you might have learned right here on examiner.com. last week.
Darchinyan (32-1, 26 knockouts), coming off Saturday’s 11-round whipping of super flyweight challenger Jorge Arce, would like nothing better than to fight Donaire (20-1, 13 knockouts), whose 2007 knockout of Darchinyan is the definitive flyweight division bout of recent years. But Donaire, largely inactive after that fight, dumped Shaw as his promoter last fall in favor of Bob Arum and Top Rank.
Donaire’s manager, Cameron Dunkin, wised me up last week about Shaw’s attitude toward the prospects for a Darchinyan-Donaire rematch. I was writing about Donaire’s lack of TV exposure, notably for his March 14 IBF flyweight title defense against unbeaten Texan Raul Martinez in the Philippines, but I did link to Shaw saying “you don’t reward disloyalty,” much as he said on camera Saturday.
To be fair, I was offered an opportunity to talk with Shaw last Monday, but I didn’t want this controversy to open my relationship with him. That’s unavoidable now.
As it’s night time in the Philippines as I post, it may be a while before I get the response I just requested from Donaire. In the meantime, check out last week’s post.
OTHER NOTES: Gus Johnson, call me for a little remedial instruction in Spanish pronunciation, which you need now that you’ve replaced my buddy Steve Albert on Showtime’s primary telecasts. I cringed Saturday every time Gus mispronounced “Mijares.” It’s ain’t Muh-HAIR-ris. There were several other such transgressions.
Cristian Mijares is the somewhat Donaire-like fighter who routed Arce in 2007 but was upset by Darchinyan last fall, so we shouldn’t have expected much from Arce against Darchinyan. Jorge seemed to have no battle plan as he lost the first two rounds to Darchinyan. He tried to create non-boxing chaos in the third round and landed a couple of left hooks that won him the round, but then he turned clueless again as Darchinyan won every round en route to the technical knockout.
