By Scott Gilfoid: Liborio Solis (25-5-1, 11 KOs) has filed a protest to the World Boxing Association about his controversial 12 round unanimous decision loss to WBA World bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell (29-2-1, 13 KOs) from earlier this month on November 12 at the Salle des Etoilles in Monte Carlo.
McDonnell appeared to lose the fight in the eyes of a lot of the fans, but the three judges working the fight gave it to McDonnell as follows: 116-112, 115-113 and 117-111. However, even the WBA orders a rematch between McDonnell and Solis, it doesn’t mean the fight will take place.
McDonnell’s trainer Dave Coldwell and promoter Eddie Hearn are talking about him moving up to super bantamweight to look for bigger money fights in that weight class. If McDonnell is going to vacate his WBA title to move up to 122, then the WBA can’t force him to fight Solis a second time.
The loss would have to stand on Solis’ record. In that case, the only thing the WBA could do is let Solis fight for the vacant WBA 118lb title against #1 WBA Zhanat Zhakiyanov. McDonnell wants to move up in weight without clearing up the controversy of his questionable win over Solis, then that’s on him. He’s the one that will likely be losing boxing fans due to his poor performance.
I guess if McDonnell isn’t sure if he can beat Solis the second time around, then maybe it’s a good idea that he steer clear of him permanently. I had Solis winning easily by 9 rounds to 3. The way that Solis dominated McDonnell in that fight, I think he’d do it no matter how many times they fight each other. Solis is just a better fighter with superior boxing skills, power, speed and power. Solis was just so much better than McDonnell that it wasn’t even funny. The only thing McDonnell had going for himself in that fight was his 5’10” height over the 5’4” Solis.
McDonnell’s trainer Dave Coldwell said this to skysports.com about the Solis fight:
“It was a tight, close fight – in an ideal world Jamie would move up to super-bantamweight as soon as possible,” said Coldwell. “We have to look at the opportunities at super-bantamweight, but it’s about making money and taking the biggest fight.”
Well, I hate to break the bad news to Coldwell, but the McDonnell-Solis fight WASN’T a “close fight” in the minds of a lot of boxing fans. It was a fairly one-sided fight with Solis appearing to be the clear winner. If I was a close fight like Coldwell says, then the fans wouldn’t have been so upset with the decision afterwards. The reasons why the fans were so upset was because they felt that Solis had won the fight easily.
As bad as McDonnell looked against Solis, I don’t see him being able to find a whole lot of success at super bantamweight if he moves up in weight rather than staying at 118 to fight Solis again. Yeah, McDonnell will get a nice payday against former WBA super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg, but I sure as heck don’t see him winning that fight.
Quigg will likely knock McDonnell out easily. It won’t even be a fight in my opinion. But after McDonnell loses to Quigg, I don’t see where he can go in the 122lb division. Being 5’10” is obviously a big advantage at bantamweight, but it’s not going to help McDonnell in the super bantamweight division. He’s going to need some boxing skills, power and hand speed to go anywhere in that weight class.
Can you imagine what someone like Nonito Donaire would do to McDonnell at super bantamweight? There are also guys like Cesar Juarez and Jessie Magdaleno that would easily beat McDonnell. What I see happening is McDonnell losing again and again when he’s matched against good 122lb fighters.
Yeah, I think McDonnell can beat the lesser fighters, but he can’t make a career out of fighting fodder at super bantamweight. He’s going to need to fight the quality guys if he wants to do anything at super bantamweight. The fight against Quigg is just fight. After McDonnell loses that fight, he’s going to need to do something unless he wants to retire. I think McDonnell is going to wind up coming back to 118, because this is the only weight class where he’ll have found success. Solis will be waiting for McDonnell when he comes back down and he’ll want to fight him so he can avenge his loss.
“If the biggest fights are at bantam, we’ll take it,” said Coldwell. “If he is keeping hold of his WBA belt and Eddie can find the money, we’ll take this all day long. Jamie won’t fight any worse than he did in that first one, that’s for sure.”
If McDonnell fights the same way he did against Solis in the first fight, then he’ll lose badly in the second one in my view, as long as he has a different set of judges working the fight that appreciate what he’s doing inside the ring. Coldwell seems to be dropping a pretty big hint that McDonnell won’t be fighting Solis again. By reducing it to being a money thing, Coldwell seems to be floating the excuse for why McDonnell won’t be fighting Solis again. That’s pretty sad. Why did McDonnell fight Solis in the first place if it’s all about money and not about sport? From what I recall, no one was giving Solis any chance of beating McDonnell. Boy, were they wrong about Solis. He not only showed that he could beat McDonnell, but he showed that he could totally dominate him. It’s too bad the judges didn’t see that.