My Observations from Donaire-Rigondeaux

now that you mentioned it . . . i do remember that. perhaps he got overconfident and lost concentration. I probably overlooked when he did lapse because I was enjoying him displaying his handiwork.

yes, the elbow . . . not to many fighter use it at all or at least effectively.

 

Great review and all good boxing from Rigo
Donaire had no answer to his skill and was trying for one punch KO
Good to see boxing win and it was not a boring fight as ARUM says? plenty of skill shown and as said above Donaire needed to box more and let the punch come from pressure but Rigo was way to slick.

 

Simply brilliant

 

Good read sir. Awesome analysis.

 

Good points, we'll discuss this further in a thread to be created by you or bball, or me if I get drunk one night.

 

Pretty much though I'd say pressure (done right) was the right thing to do. There's nothing else nonito could have done . If a guy isnt going to engage you need to press him and make the fight. I would have made that an inside fight and tested Rigo's in-fighting ability - but like you said Nonito doesn't know how to do that, he's pretty much strictly a counter puncher. I think if he works on his boxing he could be a lot better. If there's any thing he can do its let his hands go and stop looking for one punch - any time he dose that he looks great.

 

Damn good read Bogo.

 

That's what she said

 

How do I subscribe to your comments?

 

A lot of good points as usual, Bogo. I think that by fighting defensively the way he did, Rigo made himself into the biggest possible challenge for Donaire's style.

Donaire, as we all know, prefers to play the counterpuncher, and he does it all with one or two shots at a time of clean power punches. He doesn't roughhouse or pressure opponents to create opportunities, and he doesn't tend to use a lot of activity. Well, against a defensively gifted fighter with good reflexes, trying to land one big shot at a time with KO torque is going to be the easiest style for them to defend against. Especially if the guy trying to put them out with one shot favors one hand and you know that's where the danger is going to come from.

While I've seen a few people say that Donaire wasn't completely horrible in cutting off the ring, (and he did usually manage to at least close to punching range, so that's something) he certainly didn't do it in a way that did him any good offensively. All during Saturday night, I was waiting for Donaire to make even some basic changes in his approach, like instead of walking straight in on Rigo, to take a diagonal step forward and to the right and lead with the right hand to better catch a circling Rigo, and to throw some kind of variety into things, just to get Rigo thinking and worried about something besides the left hook.

Hell, Donaire could have led with the straight right a few times, just enough to make Rigo start to move the opposite way, and then he would have been moving into Donaire's hook just as Donaire was hoping for.

If Donaire fights Rigo again, he's going to have to forget about trying to please the crowd or go for the KO, focus on making contact to score points, improve his right hand and stalking technique, and be willing to try something other just hoping that the big left will land sooner or later.