Donaire faces Casimero in Aug. 14 unification showdown

CEBU CITY, Philippines—- In a sudden turn of events, five-division world champion and newly-crowned WBC world bantamweight king, Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire Jr., replaces Guillermo Rigondeaux of Cuba to fight fellow Filipino world champion Johnriel “Quadro Alas” Casimero this August 14, 2021.

This development surprised many Filipino boxing fans as Casimero, the reigning WBO world bantamweight champion, was expected to face Rigondeaux, who is the WBA world bantamweight title holder.

Casimero and Rigondeaux’s supposed unification bout was scheduled on the same date at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson City, California.

However, this will no longer happen after Donaire Jr. and Casimero officially announced their big fight via their social media pages this Sunday, June 20, 2021.

The 38-year old Donaire Jr. dethroned French-Morrocan Nordine Oubaali via a fourth-round knockout for the WBC world bantamweight title last May 29, 2021 at the Dignity Health Sports Park. He improved his record to 41 wins, 27 knockouts with six defeats.

Rigondeaux is very familiar to Donaire Jr. after he defeated the latter in 2013 for the WBA and WBO world super bantamweight straps in New York.

But, he will be replacing the Cuban world champion to schedule a rare all-Filipino world title unification bout.

In his post, Donaire said, “My team does magic. Thank you to Richard Schaefer, Rachel Donaire, PBC, TGB and Showtime. Started camp last week. Belt #2 coming soon.”

Meanwhile, the 32-year old Casimero, the pride of Ormoc City, also announced on his social media pages that he would be fighting Donaire Jr.

Just this month, Donaire Jr. officially signed with Schaefer’s Ringstar Sports with the hopes of adding another world title belt in his already legendary career in boxing.

Many boxing experts initially believe that Donaire Jr. expected to rematch against Japanese IBF and WBA Super World bantamweight champion Naoya “Monster” Inoue.

A unification bout versus Casimero was a farfetched idea for many.

Also, Casimero has been yearning to fight Inoue since last year. Casimero even personally asked Inoue’s promoter, Bob Arum, to give him a chance to fight the Japanese world champion.

Casimero (30-4-0,21KOs) has not fought since September 2020. His last bout was against Ghanian Duke Micah, where he scored a third-round technical knockout (TKO) to defend his WBO world bantamweight title three consecutive times.

The Donaire-Casimero bout is one of the rare all-Filipino world title showdowns in history.

Other notable all-Filipino world title duels were Pancho Villa versus Clever Sencio, Jonas Sultan vs. Jerwin Ancajas, Donnie “Ahas” Nietes vs. Aston “Mighty” Palicte, Vic Saludar vs. Robert Paradero, and Pedro Taduran vs. Rene Mark Cuarto. / dcb