Donaire and Bedak make weight

By Boxing News - 04/22/2016 - Comments

donaire100By Jim Dower: Nonito Donaire and his opponent Zsolt Bedak both made weight on Friday for their pay-per-view fight in Cebu City in the Philippines. Donaire (36-3, 23 KOs) weighed in at 121.75lbs for his fight on Saturday night. Donaire will be defending his WBO super bantamweight title for the first time.

Bedak (25-1, 8 KOs) weighed in 125.5lbs. Donaire, 33, looked very thin for the weight. He’s someone that probably should be fighting at featherweight at this point in his career. Donaire doesn’t have the chin to be fighting at featherweight though. We saw that with hi KO loss to Nicholas Walters in 2014.

Donaire clearly moved back down to 122 to fight at super bantamweight once again for a reason. If he felt he could find success at featherweight, he likely would have stayed in that weight class because it’s easier on his body to melt down to 126 than it is for him to get down to 122.

As drained looking as Donaire appeared today, it wouldn’t be surprising if he comes into the fight against Bedak in the 140s. Bedak didn’t look drained at all today, which indicates that he’s not going to be putting too much weight back on before Saturday night.

Donaire being the bigger fighter could help him or hurt him. It depends on whether the fight goes into the later rounds, and if he feels weakened from having taken all the weight off and put it back on in 24 hours. Bedak may not be able to take the fight into the second half. If Donaire goes all out in the first six rounds, we might see Bedak getting stopped once again like he was against Wilfredo Vazquez Jr.

It’s really surprising this fight is going to be on pay-per-view in the United States because it would seem not a worthy enough fight for it to be one that boxing fans should have to pay to see. Donaire was knocked out just two years ago by Nicholas Walters.

While Donaire has won his last four fights, he’s only faced one decent quality opponent during that time frame in Cesar Juarez last December. Donaire beat him to win the vacant WBO 122lb title, but it was far from an impressive performance by him. Juarez was in the fight and gave Donaire huge headaches.

Bedak, 33, is not a big puncher and will need to focus on trying to out-box Donaire. If he tries to trade with him, then this could turn out badly for Bedak. The last time that Bedak fought a good fighter six years ago, he was stopped in the 10th round by Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. That fight highlighted Bedak’s problems with punchers. He doesn’t have the power to be able to fight them off so he needs to box for 12 rounds.

In the Vazquez Jr. fight, Bedak was pressured the entire fight and he took a lot of punishment and couldn’t keep him off of him. If Bedak had more power, he would have been able to make Vazquez Jr. back off and give him more space.

Donaire is the much stronger puncher of the two. He’s not the same fighter he was years ago, but his power is still very much there, especially at super bantamweight now that he’s back in the division.