Nonito Donaire vs. Zsolt Bedak a possibility for April 23

By Boxing News - 01/10/2016 - Comments

donaire344By Chris Williams: A fight between WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (36-3, 23 KOs) and #5 WBO Zsolt Bedak (25-1, 8 KOs) is in the works for April 23 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in the Philippines. This would be the 33-year-old Donaire’s first defense of his World Boxing Organization 122lb title that he recently won in a hard-fought 12 round unanimous decision victory over Cesar Juarez (17-4, 13 KOs) last December in a fight in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Donaire really struggled in that fight in having problems with the pressure and the youth of the 24-year-old Mexican Juarez. Fortunately for Donaire, Juarez wasn’t much of a puncher, because otherwise he likely would have been knocked out by him.

Donaire’s promoters at Top Rank have reportedly been interested in having him defend his WBO 122lb title against Top Rank fighter Evgeny Gradovich (21-1, 9 KOs), a former IBF featherweight champion.

The idea was to have Gradovich move down in weight to fight Donaire rather than matching Donaire against one of the WBO’s top 15 contenders at super bantamweight. By making an in house fight between Donaire and Gradovich, Top Rank would be helping out two of their own fighters without having to do business with an outside promotional company.

The problem is Gradovich, 31, struggled last night in his fight against Mexican journeyman Jesus Galicia (13-9-1, 8 KOs) in having to go life and death with him to win a 12 round majority decision at the Centro Deportivo Boxing Unitres, Picanya, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain. Gradovich could only get down to 128lbs for the fight, and it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to drain down to 122lbs to fight Donaire for his WBO super bantamweight title.

Gradovich won the fight against Jesus Galicia by the scores of 96-94, 96-96 and 99-93. It was supposed to be an easy fight for Gradovich, but it turned out to be a very difficult one. The fact that Gradovich can’t even beat a featherweight journeyman without great struggle doesn’t bode well for Gradovich’s career, and it makes it even less interesting to think of a fight between him and Donaire.

“I’m going forward on Bedak and I think I can get it done,” said Donaire’s manager Cameron Dunkin to the New Standard/boxingmirror.com.

This would seem like a safe fight for Donaire. Bedak, 32, has done very little in his career since being stopped in the 10th round by former Donaire victim Wilfredo Vasquez Jr. back in 2010. That was six years ago, and Bedak has won his last 10 fights, but he’s faced nothing but weak opposition for some reason.

Normally fighters come back after a loss and start fighting quality fighters once again after a couple of confidence builder type of fights, but Bedak instead chose to fight confidence builders for five solid years and he’s unfortunately eaten up arguably the best years of his career.

It’s too bad because Bedak could have possibly challenged for a world title much sooner if he had started facing quality opposition again within a year after his loss to Vasquez Jr. In hindsight, it has to be seen as a major blunder on Bedak’s part to allow his career to be slowed in this manager.

Bedak fought in the 2004 Olympics for his country Hungary and he defeated Abner Mares before losing to Maksym Tretyak from Ukraine and being eliminated.

Donaire has won his last three fights since being stopped by Nicholas Walters in the 6th round in their featherweight fight in October 2014. Since that defeat, Donaire has beaten Cesar Juarez, Anthony Settoul and William Prado.

Donaire shouldn’t have any problems beating the 5’4” Bedak, as he’s short, weak and mostly just a technician. He’s not threat to Donaire at all. Bedak also isn’t someone that will bring in a lot of fans unfortunately, which is probably why they’re kicking around the idea of staging the Donaire-Bedak fight in the Philippines rather than the United States.

If Donaire keeps his WBO title long enough, he’ll have to face unbeaten Jessie Magdaleno (22-0, 16 KOs), and that could prove to be a very difficult fight for Donaire. Magdaleno can punch and he would put tremendous pressure on Donaire every minute of every round of the fight.

Donaire’s career has not seemed the same since his loss to Rigondeaux in 2013. Before that loss, Donaire was fighting mostly in the United States and was one of HBO’s darlings. Since the loss, Donaire has seen four of his last six fights staged outside of the United States for some reason. Top Rank is no longer having Donaire fight in the U.S on a frequent basis and you have to wonder why. It’s kind of a big fall for Donaire, who was voted as the 2012 Fighter of the Year. He’s now fighting in places like China, Philippines and Puerto Rico rather than the U.S.



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