Donaire could fight Mijares in early 2013

By Boxing News - 11/03/2012 - Comments

Image: Donaire could fight Mijares in early 2013By Chris Williams: It looks like WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) will continue on his course of fighting older fighters, as he’s being talked about fighting former IBF/WBA/WBC super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (47-6-2, 22 KO’s) in the first part of next year, according to the Manila Bulletin.

Donaire was supposed to fight Mijares earlier this year, but HBO said no to that fight. Donaire then opted to fight IBF super bantamweight champion Jeffrey Mathebula. If HBO said no once to a Mijares fight I wonder if they’ll change their mind about this now? Mijares stopped a past his prime Rafael Marquez last month in a 9th round stoppage, but Mijares hardly looked good. Marquez had him on the ropes in the 1st round and was really teeing off on Mijares when the flow of the fight was stopped due to a head-butt.

Marquez was immediately docked a point and that appeared to give Mijares the time to escape from the round. If not for that, I think Mijares would have been knocked out. Marquez, 37, still was able to punish the light hitting Mijares until running out of gas after the 4th round and getting manhandled and stopped. It wasn’t impressive stuff from Mijares, and I can’t see him beating any of the top super bantamweights that don’t have an inflated ranking like the World Boxing Council for some reason gave to Marquez. Before the fight with Mijares, Marquez was ranked #2 by the WBC at 122. That’s a scary ranking for a fighter that hasn’t looked good in ages.

Mijares was a decent light punching fighter in his prime when he fought at super flyweight, but he just looks like an aging fighter with a coat of body fat on him now, beating vulnerable guys. I’d like to see What Mijares would do if he were put in with a good super bantamweight like Victor Terrazaz. That would be a good weeding out fight. Unfortunately, it looks like Mijares will get the Donaire fight by simply beating Marquez and that’s pretty said because Marquez is WAY past his prime. The last quality fighter that Mijares fought was Vic Darchinyan, and he totally destroyed Mijares in a 9th round TKO four years ago in 2008.

A fight between Mijares vs. Donaire would be one of those Mexico vs. the Philippines match-ups. Mijares isn’t a real popular fighter in Mexico, but he’s got enough fans to attract a decent amount of fans if Arum stages the fight in Texas like he’s doing with Donaire’s fight against a past his best Jorge Arce on December 15th. That fight will take place at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. It looks like Arum is counting on the significant Mexican population in the area to pool in to see the smaller, older Arce fight Donaire. It’s a fight that has mismatch written all over it, and I’d be surprised if Arce can last even five rounds. He recently fought a fighter named Jesus Rojas earlier this year and was getting handled by the younger fighter when Arce hit the deck and couldn’t continue due to an injury. I have a feeling we’ll see Arce hitting the deck very early against Donaire. I just hope Arce’s fans don’t think he has a chance at beating Donaire because he doesn’t.

Donaire could possibly fight Rigondeaux later in 2013, although I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.



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