Donaire sees Arce fight as ending early on Saturday

By Boxing News - 12/12/2012 - Comments

Image: Donaire sees Arce fight as ending early on SaturdayBy Chris Williams: WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) doesn’t think that his fight this Saturday night against 5’4” Jorge Arce (61-6-2, 46 KO’s) will be going the distance and few boxing fans are disagreeing with him.

Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum selected the 33-year-old Arce to fight Donaire instead of the much, much more relevant Abner Mares or Guillermo Rigondeaux, and this fight is shaping up to be an even worse mismatch than Donaire’s fight against a WAY past his prime 36-year-old Toshiaki Nishiaka, who Donaire said was the best fighter in the super bantamweight division leading up to the fight.

Donaire isn’t saying Arce is the best fighter at 122, but I think he knows better than to make that claim because it wouldn’t survive the laugh test. The only logical reason that Donaire is fighting the overmatched and arguably best his best Arce is because he’s got a lot of Mexican fans, and will attract more attention than a fight against Mares or Rigondeaux among casual boxing fans who only have a scant knowledge about who is good, and who is not so good in the sport.

I think Arce is a good fighter, but I don’t rate him as a top 10 fighter at super bantamweight. He may be ranked #1 by the WBO, but I rate a lot of guys ahead of him, such as Victor Terrazaz, Johnathon Romero, Scott Quigg, Carl Frampton, Cristjian Mijares, Vic Darchinyan, Sod Kokietgym, Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, Takalani Ndlovu, and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr.

Donaire told thesweetscience.com “This fights not going the distance.”

Donaire hasn’t been trash talking for this fight, and it’s kind of understandable because boxing fans aren’t all that excited about this match-up. They see is as a mismatch, so trash talking isn’t necessary. What Donair e should have been doing is trying to build Arce up with boxing fans so that they saw this as a competitive match-up instead of a mismatch.



Comments are closed.