Donaire vs. Arce on October 20th

By Boxing News - 07/20/2012 - Comments

Image: Donaire vs. Arce on October 20thBy Dan Ambrose: Despite a lot of talk about how he wanted to fight Abner Mares or Guillermo Rigondeaux, IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (29-1, 18 KO’s) appears to on the verge of facing 32-year-old Jorge Arce (60-6-2, 46 KO’s) on October 20th, according to Los Angeles Times writer Lance Pugmire.

If you’re a Donaire fan you’ve got to like this fight because it’s a very winnable fight for him. Arce, 5’4″, is three inches shorter than Donaire and coming off of a disappointing 2nd round no contest to Jesus M Rojas last June in which Arce quit after complaining of pain in one of his ears after taking a hard shot from Rojas. The outcome seemed to a lot of boxing fans like Arce simply took the easy way out because Rojas was starting to really connect with some big shots, and one could get the impression from watching the fight that Arce would have taken a lot of punishment from the younger Rojas.

This is a much better match-up for Donaire, because he would have his hands full with the nonstop punching attack from Mares or the lightning fast counter punching from Rigondeaux.

Donaire has built a large following from having his fights televised on HBO. He’d been looking really good in facing smaller guys than him at flyweight, super flyweight and bantamweight. But since moving up to the super bantamweight division and facing guys as big or bigger than him, Donaire has looked poor against Wilfredo Vazquez Jr, and Jeffrey Mathebula. The knockouts have dried up and Donaire is now having to take a lot of punishment to win 12 round decisions where he doesnt look all that great anymore. The weird thing is Donaire still clowns around by jumping from side to side as if he’s dominating but he looks somehow silly because he’s getting hit a lot and his punches have little affect against his opponents.

Recently Donaire made excuses about why he couldn’t knockout Mathebula by saying he was trying too hard to KO him. It just seemed like another sad excuse from Donaire.



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