Donaire to fight on March 28th in the Philippines

By Boxing News - 01/12/2015 - Comments

donaireBy Chris Williams: Former four division belt holder Nonito Donaire (33-3, 21 KOs) will be returning to the ring in two months from now to face a still to be determined opponent at the Mall of Asia Arena in the Philippines.

Donaire, 32, is expected to be matched up against a Mexican fighter in what will likely be a tune-up bout at 122. Donaire needs a confidence booster after he was knocked out in the 6th round by WBA featherweight champion Nicholas Walters last October at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

“I’ll fight whoever they put in front of me,” Donaire said via the Manilastandardtoday.com.

It’s not expected that Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum will match the 32-year-old Filipino fighter tough, because he’s now lost two out of his last four fights and not looked in any of his bouts since his win over little Jorge Arce in 2012. That’s three long years.

Donaire has struggled since then in fights against Guillermo Rigondeaux, Vic Darchinyan, Simpiwe Vetyeka and Walters. It’s unclear if Donaire’s struggles are due to age or because of him fighting at featherweight. One thing is for sure, you can’t blame Donaire’s loss to Rigondeaux on him being out of his weight class because that fight took place at super bantamweight, not featherweight.

Donaire says he wants to avenge his loss to Nicholas Walters, and that he’d like to stay at featherweight. However, Donaire is being moved down in weight to super bantamweight and he’s heading in the opposite direction of Walters. This is kind of like what happened with Donaire after his loss to Rigondeaux.

Donaire said he wanted to immediately try and avenge the loss, but then he was never put back in with Rigondeaux despite the Cuban fighters’ interest in fighting Donaire again. It’s quite possible that Donaire will never be put back in with Walters. Arum has got to know that Donaire would lose to Walters no matter how many times they face each other.

For Arum, it would be bad business to let Donaire fight Walters or even Rigondeaux again because Donaire’s popularity would likely deteriorate with each loss to them. He’s a popular fighter despite him not being the best at 122 or 126. Donaire’s large Filipino fan base follows his fights closely and they give a ton of support.

The trick for Arum is try and find a title that Donaire is capable of winning at 122, because his career won’t be able to spring back to what it was in 2012 if he doesn’t pick up a belt off of one of the super bantamweight champions. In 2012, Donaire was voted the Fighter of the Year for his wins over Jeffrey Mathbula, Jorge Arce, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr and Toshiaki Nishioka.

Unfortunately for Donaire, none of those fighters are major players at super bantamweight anymore, as the division has gotten much, much better in the past three years. If Donaire wants to pick up a title at super bantamweight, he’ll need to try and do it by beating Scott Quigg, Carl Frampton, Leo Santa Cruz or Rigondeaux. Those are all very tough opponents for Donaire, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he loses to all of them.

Like before, Donaire will have a size advantage over many of his opponents when he moves back down to 122. A lot of boxing fans feel that Donaire’s size advantage was the only reason he had success over his opponents. We saw that when Donaire moved up in weigh to featherweight and fought guys his own size, he was much less effective.



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