By Dan Ambrose: WBA bantamweight champion Jorge Arce (59-6-2, 45 KO’s) will be making a voluntary defense against non-top 15 ranked Lorenzo Parra (31-3-1, 18 KO’s) on February 18th in Durango, Mexico. Arce, 32, fought Parra last year in September in a 10 round draw. I saw the fight and had Parra winning easily at least two rounds. He was the stronger puncher, the faster and landed the much cleaner punches.

Of course, Parra, who comes from Venezuela, isn’t as popular as Arce and the fight took place in Arce’s home country of Mexico. So, I’m not really surprised in the least that fight didn’t go Parra’s way, but at least he wasn’t given a loss, so that’s a slight positive.

Arce recently picked up the vacant World Boxing Organization bantamweight title with a 12 round unanimous decision win over Angky Angkota last month. That was a rematch of their January 2010 fight last year in which Arce won by a 7th round technical decision.

Arce defeated WBO super bantamweight champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. by a 12th round TKO last May in big upset win in Las Vegas, Nevada. Arce only defended the WBO title once, beating Simphiwe Nongqayi by a 4th round TKO win last September, which was also a rematch from their original fight in September 2009, where Arce was beaten by Nongqayi by a 12 round unanimous decision.

It seems as if Arce is into fighting a lot of rematches lately for one reason or another. I can understand the Nongqayi rematch, as he lost to the guy but fighting Angkota again and Parra is kind of a waste of time, especially given that Parra isn’t even ranked. What makes this fight even worse is that Parra was stopped in the 8th round by WBA Super World bantamweight champion Anselmo Moreno in his last fight last June. Fighting Parra now seems hardly necessary and just looks as if Arce is cherry picking opponents.