By Chris Williams: The World Boxing Association has ordered WBA featherweight champion Nicholas Walters (23-0, 19 KO’s) to face WBA Super World featherweight champion Simpiwe Vetyeka (26-2, 16 KO’s) next, and Nonito Donaire reportedly isn’t happy about it.
Although he’s injured with a fractured orbital bone and unable to fight until May of next year, Donaire still was hoping to fight the unbeaten Walters for his WBA featherweight strap at that time. But with the WBA ordering Walters to face the 32-year-old Vetyeka next, it leaves Donaire with no opponent for May.
Donaire can still wait around until the 2nd half of 2014 to fight the winner of the Walkers-Vetyeka fight, but that obviously will slow Donaire’s career down, because neither of those guys are popular fighters and Donaire basically be waiting to fight a paper champion.
Why Donaire wants this belt rather than the WBO title held by Orlando Salido, WBC strap held by Jhonny Gonzalez or the IBF title held by Evgeny Gradovich is the real question. Is Donaire mainly looking to avoid those two champions by looking for the easier belt to take or does his promoter Bob Arum have some reason some angle for Donaire going after Walter’s title?
Donaire told the Manila Standard via Philboxing “I don’t understand. If they have as super champion [Vetyeka] and regular champion [Walters] why do they have to fight each other instead of the No.1 contender?”
Good question. Who knows? Maybe the WBA sees the Walters-Vetyeka as the more interesting fight than having a fighter who has never fought a real featherweight before go straight to a title shot. Donaire has one fight under his belt at featherweight and that was against super bantamweight Vic Darchinyan last November.
Why Donaire wanted to fight a super bantamweight in his first fight at featherweight is something only he knows. Logically, you would think that Donaire should be fighting featherweights if he wants to fight in the featherweight division instead of dragging past their prime 37-year-old super bantamweights up to the featherweight division to fight them like Darchinyan.
I don’t know why Donaire isn’t targeting the other featherweight champions -Jhonny Gonzalez, Gradovich and Salido – but it would seem to me that would something Donaire should be doing if he can’t get a fight against Nicholas Walters in the first half of 2014. If Donaire is really all that, then he should be able to beat any of those guys with ease. But if he’s not then he probably go back down to the super bantamweight division to try and make something happen there.
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