By Chris Williams: For one of the few times in his career, WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire will be facing a fighter that’s taller than him when he meets up with IBF super bantamweight champion Jeffrey Mathebula on July 7th at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

The 5’5 1/2″ Donaire has generally been a lot bigger than the guys he’s been matched up with over the years with his Top Rank promoters. However, with the fight against the 5’10” Mathebula, Donaire won’t be taller and he’ll actually be giving away a lot of size in this fight. Never fear, though, because Mathebula has been carefully selected for Donaire, and is little threat to beat him because he doesn’t have much power to speak of. The fighter that is a huge threat, who would have to be favored against Donaire, is WBA champ Guillermo Rigondeaux.

However, Donaire doesn’t want to fight him and his promoters also aren’t anxious to throw Donaire in the ring with Rigondeux. As such, Mathebula will be the guy that gets the fight.

Donaire said to the Manila Standard “I’ve never been in this territory before where I’m fighting a guy who is taller than me. He’s 5’10” and is really taller than me and I always fought opponents who were shorter than me so I need to change in every way.”

Donaire’s last fight against Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. was one of the rare fights where Donaire was facing a guy about as tall as him, and Donaire did poorly in that fight. He was badly marked up and hit quite a lot. Had Vazquez Jr. had a little more power and technique, he’d likely have knocked Donaire out. As it was, he badly exposed him and showed the world that Donaire doesn’t carry the same power at super bantamweight than he does at the lower weights.