By Chris Williams: WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (28-1, 18 KO’s) sounds enthusiastic about the idea of facing undefeated Yuriorkis Gamboa (21-0, 16 KO’s) in the near future. However, it’s going to have to wait a while because Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum has scheduled Donaire to fight former IBF/WBA/WBC super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (44-6-2, 20 KO’s) on July 28th in Texas.

Donaire told the examiner.com “That [fighting Gamboa] would be great for me. I would like to fight the best guys there, but I’m at 122 right now. I don’t want to skip to a division where I know I’m small. And I’m still small at 122; that’s why I’m doing kettle bells, weight lifting and that kind of stuff.”

As you can see, Donaire isn’t isn’t eager to jump in the ring and fight Gamboa or Brandon Rios, a former WBA World lightweight champion. You really can’t blame Donaire because he moved up in weight recently and struggled badly to beat former WBO super bantamweight champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. by a 12 round unanimous decision last month. Donaire took a beating in that fight from Vazquez Jr’s jab alone. Donaire couldn’t hurt Vazquez Jr. and it appeared that Donaire’s power hadn’t traveled up with him to the super bantamweight division. Now imagine Donaire moving up yet another weight class to fight Gamboa. Donaire couldn’t fight Rios unless he was ready to move up two divisions not just one.

It seems to be that Donaire won’t ever get around to fighting the likes of Gamboa, Orlando Salido and Juan Manuel Lopez because Donaire is probably going to struggle against the other super bantamweight fighters once he gets around to fighting them. If you haven’t already noticed his promoter Bob Arum is matching Donaire against the light hitting Mijares in his next fight instead of some of the dangerous super bantamweights like Guillermo Rigondeaux and Toshiaki Nishioka in his next fight. That’s going to save Donaire beating for that fight but he’s to start taking punishment as soon as Arum matches him against a decent super bantamweight. Once he starts struggling at this weight, you can pretty much forget seeing Donaire move up against guys even bigger than him with more power. That won’t happen unless Arum is cashing out and I don’t think he will. Donaire has a large Filipino following like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has a large Mexican following. Donaire doesn’t even need to be matched against any one any good and his fans will still follow him if he’s fighting dangerous guys.