By Dan Ambrose: Bob Arum plans on making 2012 a very busy one for his fighter Nonito Donaire (27-1, 18 KO’s), starting with what Arum hopes is a fight for Donaire against WBC super bantamweight champion Toshiaki Nishioka.
That’s the first fight that Arum wants, and then followed by a fight against WBO super bantamweight champion Jorge Arce. As for the rest of the fights, Arum will likely have Donaire stick it out at super bantamweight against whatever he can find for Donaire.
Ideally, Donaire needs to be matched against bantamweights Abner Mares and Joseph Agebeko before Donaire is moved up in weight to the featherweight division for fights against Yuiorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez.
Although a lot of boxing fans are portraying Donaire as a fighter that’s just starting out in his career, he’s actually turning 29 next month, the same age as Kelly Pavlik. Donaire has already been fighting as a pro for 10 long years. What makes Donaire seem so new is that he’s been underutilized by Arum for the past four years and is only now starting to get interesting fights, although Arum matching super flyweight Omar Narvaez is hardly a big fight. It was another wheel-spinning fight for Donaire instead of a step forward.
You can’t really look at fights against Nishioka and Arce as fights that will do much for Donaire’s career other than keeping him busy. If Arum can quickly move Donaire up to the featherweight division in the second part of 2012, then it will be a good career move for him. However, he’s not going to get a fight against Mares, because he fights for Golden Boy Promotions. Agebeko is already slated for a rematch with Mares on December 3rd, and if Agbeko loses again to Mares then there won’t be any point in Donaire fighting Agebeko. That doesn’t mean that Arum won’t still match Donaire with Agbeko because we’ve seen Arum do this in the past with his fighters, but it would really look bad for Donaire if that’s what Arum ends up doing.
The Donaire vs. Narvaez fight turned out to be a real dull fight, and Arum afterwards was in shock about why it didn’t turn out to be an exciting fight like he thought it would be. It’s not hard to understand why it was a boring affair. Narvaez was way too small to win, and he was more intent on just not getting knocked out than in trying to win. Narvaez is already the WBO super flyweight champion, and this was just a payday fight for Narvaez. He didn’t have to work hard because he had a place to fall back to if things didn’t turn out well for him. Arum should have recognized that the guy wouldn’t be desperate like normal fighters are because he already has a title. in hindsight, it was a dumb move by Arum to match Donaire with a guy from a lighter division who has no real reason to fight his heart out because he already has a title. Dumb move.