Donaire, Rigondeaux Animosity Builds Over Houston Rift

By Dennis "dSource" Guillermo

There's no denying the animosity between Nonito Donaire, Jr. and Guillermo Rigondeaux and their camps. Rigondeaux has been calling out and mocking Donaire for quite some time now, in an effort to land a big fight with the top pound-for-pound Filipino-American boxer.

Set on a collision course for 2013, the camps of both fighters have already started some pre-fight build-up of sorts with a late-night altercation following Donaire's third round knockout win over Jorge Arce in Houston last weekend.

The incident caught the ire of Donaire, which prompted the jr. featherweight king to personally hit up Rigondeaux's room after the fight. According to witnesses at the Hyatt Hotel where both fighters and their teams were checked-in for the fight, DJ Montacordoba, strength and conditioning of Team Rigondeaux, allegedly got into a heated argument and started yelling at a female member of Donaire's entourage hours after the fight.

"I don't really care if people talk $h!t about me, that's fine with me, but if you're going to talk $h!t to a person that cares for me, especially to a woman, if you're going to talk $h!t to a woman like that and disrespect her, I can't have that," Donaire told this scribe a day after the fight. "I don't want people to disrespect other people who have nothing to do with me in terms of fighting, especially a woman," he added.

Upon hearing about the incident, Donaire searched for Rigondeaux's room and called them personally to address the altercation. "I called him up and told them 'If you're going to talk $h!t, talk $h!t to my face. If you're going to disrespect me, don't expect me to respect you guys '," Donaire narrated. "I was telling them I wanted to talk to Rigondeaux, I wanted to talk to DJ (Montacordoba), I want to talk to whoever that speaks English [...] They were passing the phone and his coach said 'it's okay, it's okay, I'm going to calm them down, it's just that they were drinking, we understand,' pretty much sucking up to me," Donaire continued.

Donaire also stated that prior to the incident, Rigondeaux's coach had spoken to him and emphasized that they respect him, and it's simply the people around Rigondeuax that have been talking smack, and that it's a business and they simply want to make the fight happen.

Earlier in the year, Montacordoba was live on "dBoxing Source Radio Show" and argued with Donaire's wife Rachel, as other guests such as legendary boxer Roy Jones, Jr. listened while waiting to chime in.