Donaire may have weighed 130 lbs for Narvaez fight

By Boxing News - 10/23/2011 - Comments

Image: Donaire may have weighed 130 lbs for Narvaez fightBy Chris Williams: Photo credit: Sumio Yamada – Although WBC/WBO bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (27-1, 18 KO’s) weighed in at 116 lbs for his fight against super flyweight Omar Narvaez (35-1-2, 19 KO’s) last Saturday night at the MSG – WaMu Theater, New York, New York, Donaire may have weighed in as much as 130 pounds after re-hydrating after the weigh-in. In other words, Donaire may have been the size of a super featherweight against a super flyweight.

That’s what one of the HBO analysts said last Saturday night, and in looking at how huge Donaire was compared to the tiny 5’3″ Narvaez, it’s not hard to believe. Why this is important is because Donaire is fighting in the 118 pound division at bantamweight. All the big fights await Donaire at featherweight (126 lbs) and super featherweight (130 lbs).

Donaire basically looked like a super featherweight against Narvaez, which would mean Donaire was weighing in at three divisions above the bantamweight division in a fight against a small super flyweight. Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum wants to move Donaire up to super bantamweight after this fight to fight both Jorge Arce and Toshiaki Nishioka in 2012.

Those two fights will take up much of 2012, and will take Donaire into his 29th birthday. Presumably if Donaire can win those fights and look good in doing so, Arum will then move Donaire up to featherweight. However, Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa will likely have moved up to super featherweight by then.

The only other good fighter at featherweight is Orlando Salido, the WBO featherweight champion. Arum probably won’t ever match Donaire against Salido for a couple of reasons. First of all, Salido would beat Donaire every day of the week including Sunday. But the other reason is Salido doesn’t fight for Top Rank, and Arum probably want to sacrifice Donaire to a non-Top Rank fighter like Salido. Donaire will then probably waste another year facing anyone but Salido at featherweight before moving up to super featherweight and getting knocked out by either Gamboa or Lopez.

We saw pretty clearly that Donaire isn’t a big puncher at 130 lbs, and that he would be in deep, deep trouble against quality super featherweights like Gamboa and Lopez.



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