Arce: I’ll retire if Donaire beats me overwhelmingly

By Boxing News - 10/28/2012 - Comments

Image: Arce: I'll retire if Donaire beats me overwhelminglyBy Chris Williams: Little 5’4″ Jorge Arce (61-6-2, 46 KO’s) is saying he’ll hang up his gloves if he’s dominated by WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) in a one-sided manner in their planned December 15th fight.

The fight contract for this bout hasn’t been signed but Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum is expected to make an announcement about the fight on Tuesday this week, and HBO will probably be picking it up. I can’t see them saying no to this fight, even though I would definitely say no to it if I was the one making the decisions in the HBO head office.

I would tell Top Rank that HBO is only interested in competitive match-ups on paper, not fights were a champion takes on an old, smaller lion that has been better days. The fight might attract interest among the Mexican and Filipino communities but it’s a bad product because Arce will he over his head in this fight.

Arce said to the Record.com.mx “If I get beaten overwhelmingly I think that will have nothing to do in boxing, and I would retire permanently. But if I lose with dignity or if the fight is stolen, I will continue in the sport.”

There’s no question that Arce is going to lose this fight. The only thing to wonder about is how badly will he get beaten. I think Arce could fight in the survival mode and end up losing by a boring decision if he really wants to. I think we’ll likely see that in this fight rather than him going all out to try and win it and getting knocked out. We saw that from Arce in his loss to Vic Darchinyan three years ago.

Arce fought passively in the Darchinyan fight, clinching frequently, moving around a lot and rarely engaging, and Arce was able to last until the 11th round when the fight was stopped by the ringside doctor due to cuts around Arce’s eyes. Arce didn’t try to go at Darchinyan and fight him like he does his opponents. Instead, Arce fought like he was just trying to survive. I think we’ll see that with Donaire vs. Arce.

Some boxing fans, who aren’t aware of how overmatched and old Arce is, will think Arce has a chance at beating Donaire. They’ll tune into this fight looking for good action, and will end up likely seeing a boring fight with Arce there in name only. I see the Donaire-Arce fight as being worse than Donaire’s fights against Wilfredo Vazquez Jr, Toshiaki Nishioka and Omar Narvaez combined. But at least Arce won’t get blown out and he can make an excuse to continue fighting.



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