Donaire ‘will face a monster’ in April

THE TRASH-TALKING has started even with the fight venue yet to be decided.

Caribe Promotions CEO Boris Arencibia, who handles Guillermo Rigondeaux, fired the opening salvo against WBO super bantam champion Nonito Donaire Jr., saying his ward is a “monster” in the ring who will provide an exciting fight that will end with the Filipino 2012 Fighter of the Year on the canvas.

“Rigondeaux will show all of his potentials in this fight, and he will be ready to knock Nonito Donaire out,” said Arencibia, in a report in boxingscene.com.

“I can only confirm one thing, that Rigondeaux is a monster and Nonito has never faced any fighter with the skills of the ‘Jackal.’

Rigondeaux (11-0-0 with eight KOs), the WBA super bantamweight champion dubbed as the Jackal, shone as an amateur fighter with two Olympic golds for Cuba. But he has yet to face an A-lister like Donaire (31-1-0, 20 KOs) in his largely uneventful professional career.

Donaire has remained silent and is not expected to make a formal announcement regarding the fight soon because his handler, Top Rank, and Caribe have yet to meet this week to finalize the venue of the April 13 super bantamweight unification bout.

Among those on the venue short list is the 5,000-seater Radio City Music Hall in New York City, which last staged a boxing fight in 2000 featuring Roy Jones Jr. Another option is the Theater of Madison Square Garden, also in the Big Apple, which has about the same capacity as Radio City.

Home Depot Center in Carson, California, where Donaire fought twice last year and beat Jeffrey Mathebula (July 7) and Toshiaki Nishioka (Oct. 13), is also being eyed.

Donaire fought Nishioka before 7,665 fans at the 8,000-seater venue. He is making his fifth and probably last fight at 122 pounds before moving up to the 126 lb featherweight division.