Gary Shaw talks Donaire-Darchinyan II

Michael Marley spoke with Gary Shaw this weekend, and Shaw tried to set the record straight on a potential rematch between Nonito Donaire and his man, Vic Darchinyan. You will recall that Donaire scored one of the decade's most scintillating knockouts when he stopped Darchinyan on a left hook in 2007, the only loss in Vic's career.

But despite the idea that many of us have had that Shaw may be holding a grudge against Donaire for leaving him, or that he simply didn't want to make the fight again, Gary says that's not the case.

"Vic is just moving up in weight from 112 to 115 and then to 118 and eventually to 122 pounds," Shaw said. "Vic is doing this the way Manny Pacquiao did it. I have no problem making such a rematch but who will buy it, who will pay the freight?

"If someone called from the Philippines and said, hey, we’ve got $2 million for Darchinyan, we’d go there in a heartbeat. Vic and I love the Philippines and the great boxing fans in that country. But I don’t see that happening, do you?

"If (Showtime boxing boss) Ken Hershman called with that kind of an offer, if he said he’d pay us $2.3 million, then we’d fight Donaire again also. Donaire is with Top Rank and yet I have never had a phone call from either Todd duBoef or from Bob Arum about a rematch. And HBO shows no interest in this particular fight, either."

Is there less money in Donaire-Darchinyan II than there is in Darchinyan against Joseph Agbeko? Given Showtime's wonderful support of Darchinyan, it would seem to me that they'd probably be all on board for a Darchinyan revenge storyline.

Shaw said the accusations that he is holding some kind of personal grudge against Donaire, who used to be under his wing, are false.

"My job for Vic, for any fighter, is to get the most money along with most exposure. What has Donaire been doing since he beat Vic? Not much, really. Top Rank gets more exposure and publicity for the Russian kid (7-0 middleweight Matt Korobov) than they do for Donaire.

"Vic has Joseph Agbeko July 11 on Showtime," Shaw said. "We have to get past that after we already got past Cristian Mijares and Jorge Arce. Then we can go to 122 and look at Israel Vazquez."

I'm not trying to be a stickler, but apparently he hasn't heard the news that Vazquez won't be fighting at 122 pounds anymore. That's not going to happen.

Where he's absolutely, 100% right is this: Donaire left Shaw in order to get more and better fights made. With Top Rank, he hasn't really done that yet. He's lost a ton of steam from what should have been a star-making performance against Darchinyan, where he not only knocked Vic out but dominated the entire fight. Darchinyan was outclassed that night. Would it happen again? I don't know. Vic has learned from that fight and become a much more well-rounded fighter, and is currently among the best in the sport.

He's also right in that right now, I can't see where it would happen. Darchinyan's stopping off next at 118. If successful, he might try 122. He might even go higher than that. Donaire is right now stepping up to 115 pounds to fight a guy that was at his best at 108. They're not on the same path right now, and I've abandoned hopes of seeing their rematch for the time being simply because it doesn't add up. Gary Shaw gets tons of flak, but it's not like he isn't making some sense here. The fight isn't going to happen for any number of reasons.

I also found one other quote interesting, regarding Darchinyan-Agbeko:

I asked Shaw what sense the Darchi-Agbeko title bout made in Ft. Lauderdale.

"None, it should’ve been in LA where we could get a lot of Armenians to come out for Vic. But that was Don King’s call. I don’t understand it."

There you have it. Don King: Weird.