By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire believes his planned August rematch with WBC/WBA champion Vic Darchinyan fell through not because of the quibbling over Philippine television rights but because Darchinyan “doesn’t want to fight me.”
Donaire who flew to Las Vegas last week to finalize details of their rematch with Top Rank Inc., president Todd duBeof last week said “they are just playing games because they don’t want to fight. They told us that everything’s good and when they learned that we were coming in to sign the contract they pulled out.”
Donaire noted that Darchinyan had been given the TV rights in Armenia where he is from and Australia where he is now a citizen and that he (Donaire) had a right to Philippine rights because he is a Filipino.
The WBA super flyweight interim champion who had wanted to duplicate his 5th round stoppage of Darchinyan on July 7, 2007 which was named “Knockout of the Year” felt bad because he wanted the two belts currently held by Darchinyan.
However, Donaire was resigned to the fight not taking place saying “its one of things.”
He is looking ahead to a promised fight with WBC/WBO bantamweight champion Fernando “Cochulito” Montiel who, after recently winning theWBC title with a stunning 4th round TKO win over heavily-favored Japanese Hozumi Hasegawa said he wanted to fight Donaire after taking a rest.
That fight could possibly take place in July and in the meantime Donaire told us he is looking forward to a tune-up fight before going up against Montiel “because I’ve been away for quite a while so I need to get the ring rust out before I get ready for a big fight.”
