Abner Mares to take his third consecutive tune-up against Arturo Reyes on March 7th

By Boxing News - 02/13/2015 - Comments

mares#1By Dan Ambrose: Former three vision world champion Abner Mares (28-1-1, 15 KOs) slow rebuilding of his career is still underway as he’ll be fighting his third straight tune-up bout next month against journeyman Arturo Santos Reyes (18-4, 5 KOs) on March 7th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

For some reason, Mares and his adviser Al Haymon have been reluctant to go back to fighting world class opposition ever since Mares was blasted out in one round by the hard hitting Jhonny Gonzalez in 2013.

It was easy to understand Mares taking one tune-up opponent after he was knocked out by Gonzalez, but not three of them.

The Mares-Reyes fight will be televised on NBC on the Premier Boxing Champions Series. The Mares-Reyes fight will take place on the Robert Guerrero vs. Keith Thurman fight card. Also on the card is Adrien Broner vs. John Molina Jr.

Mares obviously made a poor decision in fighting at featherweight after he’d done well in the bantamweight and super bantamweight divisions. It was only a matter of time before someone knocked him out, so it wasn’t surprising that Gonzalez was the one to KO him. However, even if Mares hadn’t been knocked out by Gonzalez, someone would have eventually gotten to Mares and done the same kind of job on him.

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Mares is being groomed to fight the winner of the Johnny Gonzalez vs. Gary Russell Jr fight. That’s asking a lot of Mares because he’s not as fast as Russell Jr, and he definitely doesn’t have the punching power that Gonzalez possesses.

There’s talk of Mares moving down in weight to the super bantamweight division sooner or later. It’s unclear how long he plans on waiting before he starts facing high quality opposition.

At 28, he’s going to need to start fighting better opposition soon because the 122 pound division is a good one with a lot of younger talent. Mares can’t face journeyman level opposition indefinitely without him wasting what’s left of his prime.

Since his loss to Gonzalez, Mares has beaten Jose Ramirez and Jonathan Oquendo in one-sided fights.

Reyes has suffered losses to Simpiwe Vetyeka, Hozumi Hasegawa, Fernando Montiel and Jesus Galicia.

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to fight in Las Vegas on March 7,” said
Mares. “This is a fantastic card that is great for me and great for the sport of boxing. I look forward to putting on a show for the fans and winning impressively.”

The card is decent, but I wouldn’t call it a fantastic one. I like the Guerrero-Thurman fight, but I see the Broner-Molina Jr fight as a mismatch. Molina Jr has lost his last two fights against Humberto Soto and Lucas Matthysse, so it’s not as good a fight as some boxing fans think it is.

If you have forgotten about Molina Jr’s losses to Soto and Matthysse, then you can see it as a great fight. But if you remember those fights, then you have to wonder why Broner is being matched up against Molina Jr instead of someone else that is actually winning their fights.



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