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“I’m in China baby!” exclaimed Rios as he was greeted at the resort’s VIP Entrance. “I worked hard in camp, have a great team, Robert Garcia will be in my corner on the night of my fight. I’m totally prepared and I will win.”
Rios (31-1-1, 22 KOs), of Oxnard, Calif., will train daily at The Venetian Macao’s gym beginning Thursday morning.
In this revealing and intimate video featurette, Edwin Rodriguez, legendary trainer Ronnie Shields, and expert conditioning coach Danny Arnold discuss the Super Middleweight title challenger’s preparation for the highly anticipated championship contest.
While most fight fans and boxing writers are heavily favoring the reigning title holder on November 16th, Edwin’s prolific trainer truly believes that his fighter is unlike anything Ward has ever seen in the ring.
Remaining tickets, priced from $1,275 to $115, and various ticket-hotel packages at Sands China’s Cotai Strip Resorts Macao, are now on sale and can be purchased online at www.venetianmacao.com/manny. U.S.-based fans may also order via a special toll-free number: 1-855-234-4410.
Hannali R. (Reseda, CA): I thought Nonito Donaire proved that he still belongs at the top of the sport with his victory over Darchinyan. How did you rate his performance? And what do you think about Rigondeaux’s bizarre request to stage a rematch in Miami?
Vivek W. (ESB): To be quite frank, I see this purely the opposite of anyone who feels this effort either “places him” or “keeps him” at the top of the sport. What I saw in Donaire was a talent who appeared totally unsure of himself, and very limited – in terms of self confidence. I’m a long time proponent of pure fundamental skills, and although I’d stop short of calling Donaire a “hype job”, when I think of the accolades received that labeled him “Fighter of the Year” and beyond, I’d be the first to say he never really had the level of talent to support such claims. Donaire’s speed and power alone made him a phenom. Beyond those two attributes, he has very little left in the tool kit and we were reminded of this again, last Saturday night.
In boxing six years can be an eternity for the arc of a career and the landscape of different levels of class. Six years and fourteen pounds ago Nonito Donaire was not the pound for pound fighter he is today but a real unknown. His abilities and progress as a fighter had not shown anything indicating what was to come for the sensational fighter has ultimately become. He was heading into his first world title bout all the down at flyweight against an emerging star in Vic Darchinyan.
A very cocky Darchinyan was making his seventh defense of his International Boxing Federation championship and had been on an impressive run knocking out all in his path minus one exception. That exception was Glenn Donaire, the older brother of Nonito, who lost a technical decision after an accidental foul resulted in a broken jaw. Heading into this fight it did not appear that Nonito was going to bring anything into this fight that was going to stop the blossoming Darchinyan from continuing his drive toward the larger stardom of boxing as he was hyped to be capable of.
Although four division world champion Nonito Donaire had tasted defeat for the first time in twelve years when last seen in the ring, the Filipino Flash remained one of boxing’s premier fighters and an HBO attraction going into Saturday night‘s Featherweight grudge match with longtime nemesis Vic Darchinyan.
Since the disappointing loss to two time Olympic gold medal winner and Super Bantamweight Champion Guillermo Rigondeaux on April 13th, 2013, Nonito welcomed his first born son, Jarel Donaire, into this world and reconciled with his father, trainer, and mentor, Nonito Donaire Sr.
With the time away from the squared circle, the 30 year old fighter felt genuinely excited about the sport once again, and wanted to use the return bout with “The Raging Bull” as a gauge in which to measure his current level of boxing proficiency.
While most fight fans and boxing writers may not be able to determine his stature among the elite of boxing with last night’s performance, Nonito’s heart, grit, and physical durability was off the charts inspirational. Despite being a heavy favorite leading into the long awaited rematch, the Armenian born fighter gave Donaire Jr. everything he could handle in the squared circle.
If anyone asked the newly crowned WBO Junior Middleweight Champion how he envisioned the opening stanza of his first major title opportunity playing out prior to Saturday night‘s match-up with Vanes Martirosyan, “getting floored” would have been the furthest scenario from the former Olympian’s mind.
Although no fighter wants to overcome the adversity of getting caught by a sneaky left hand in the first round, it was the best thing that could have happened to the crafty southpaw.
In the outset of the highly anticipated contest, the fighter more affectionately known as “Boo Boo” seemed to be loading up on shots, while throwing just one punch at a time. After falling out of position while anxiously trying to land hard leather on Martirosyan’s chin, the Armenian-born fighter countered with a perfectly timed left hand that dropped Andrade.
“He caught me early, but I stayed focused,” admitted the 25 year old title holder. “I started using the jab from that point forward and began to pick him apart.”
Saturday night at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, TX started slow with an ugly affair between two unbeatens, Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade (20-0, 13 KO’s) and Vanes “Nightmare” Martirosyan (33-0-1,21 KO;s). After witnessing their ugly affair, you wondered how they stayed undefeated for so long. Vanes is trained by Freddie Roach, he was supposed to be the aggressor. Apparently no one told him that. His corner tried to, but their pleading between rounds fell on deaf ears. Viewers wanted him to do more, to do something to stop Andrade’s clumsy attempts at controlling the action.
Early on there was hope as the “Nightmare” surprised “Boo Boo” with a counter left hook that left him on the seat of his pants. After that the unpleasantness set in and there was only one boo, and that was coming from the crowd. The crowd was justified. These two guys did their best to uglify their chances to capture the vacant WBO light middleweight title. How can anyone accurately describe the scene? How about trips, stumbles, wild misses, shoves, elbows, late hits, and an out of breath referee named Jon Schorle.
Photo: DiBella Entertainment/Ed Diller – Earlier tonight before a boisterous sold out crowd at the Aviator Sports and Events Center in Brooklyn, NY, DiBella Entertainment presented the latest edition of its popular Broadway Boxing series. The special-edition Saturday Broadway Boxing card was entitled “Battle for Brooklyn” and was headlined by Brooklyn’s fan-favorite welterweight contenders Gabriel “Tito” Bracero and Dmitriy “Star of David” Salita.
The bout between the two Brooklynites has been talked about for years, and as soon as the fighters emerged from their respective dressing rooms, the crowd erupted
The first few rounds were feeling out rounds but Bracero picked up the pace in the third. There was good two-way action in the ensuing rounds, with Bracero landing the more telling shots.
Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire came out victorious tonight against Vic “The Raging Bull” Darchinyan at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Many observers said that Darchinyan was leading on the score cards until the stoppage and Robert Garcia, Donaire’s trainer, encouraged his prodigy to throw some combinations. In the 9th round, the Filipino fighter listened to the advice from his corner and he hurt and caught Darchinyan with his deadly left hooks, which sent every boxer he faced, to go down. When Darchinyan went down and couldn’t recover anymore to a fast flurry of punches from Donaire, referee Laurence Cole halted the fight to save the defenseless boxer.