By Chris Williams: Former three division world champion Nonito Donaire (32-2, 21 KO’s) will start training for his May 31st title challenge against IBO/WBA Super World featherweight champion Simpiwe Vetyeka (26-2, 16 KO’s) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China. Donaire will be looking to capture his 4th division world title, and he’s picked out a softer target in champion Simpiwe Vetyeka than he would be if he went after WBC champ Jhonny Gonzalez, IBF champion Evgeny Gradovich or the winner of the WBO title fight between Gary Russell Jr. and Vasy Lomachenko. All of those guys would be very tough fights for Donaire.
Also on the card, WBA regular featherweight champion Nicholas Walters will be defending his title against Alejandro Perez, IBF featherweight champion Evgeny Gradovich will be facing an opponent still to be determined, super bantamweight Chris Avalos will be fighting Yasutaka Ishimoto and flyweight Brian Viloria will be facing an opponent still to be determined.
According to Donaire, the May 31st card will be like a small featherweight tournament where the winner of the Gradovich-TBA, Donaire- Vetyeka and Walters-Perez will be facing each other in a unification bout. That doesn’t quite workout, though, because there will be three champions from those three fights, and someone will be left without a fight.
“The way Top Rank has put together the card for Macau, it’ll be a big featherweight event with three world title fights,” Donaire said to Philstar. “Winners will move on to face off. That’s never been done before so I’m excited to participate in the series.”
It won’t be a big deal if Donaire faces Walters-Perez winner rather than the Gradovich winner because he’s arguably the best fighter in the tournament. The tournament also leaves out the best fighters in Gary Russell Jr. and Jhonny Gonzalez. What kind of tournament is it if you have the two best featherweights not included?
Donaire stopped 38-year-old Vic Darchinyan in the 9th round in a harder than expected fight last November. Donaire suffered a fractured cheekbone in the fight, and he didn’t look at all good in his first fight at featherweight. Darchinyan was pulled up from the super bantamweight division instead of Donaire fighting an actual featherweight.
In his fight before that, Donaire was badly schooled by Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux in April of last year. Donaire had talked about wanting to fight Rigondeaux again to try and avenge the defeat, but at the end of the day an aging Darchinyan was picked out and dragged up to the featherweight division without a catch-weight that he’d asked for. Rigondeaux was still interested in fighting Donaire, but he didn’t want to have to move up to the featherweight division to beat him for a second time.
Vetyeka defeated a past his prime Chris John by a 6th round stoppage last December to capture the WBA featherweight title. Vetyeka beat up the aging John and took his title after giving him a beating.
If Donaire loses to Vetyeka on May 31st, he’s going to have a big decision to make about his career. A loss to Vetyeka will show pretty clearly that Donaire has no business at featherweight, and he’ll have to either move back down to super bantamweight or try to go after some of the other featherweight champions in hopes of finding one that he can actually beat.
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