By Dan Ambrose: Rather than facing WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux in a unification bout, WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (28-1, 18 KO’s) has elected to take an easy title defense against #12 WBC fringe contender Cristian Mijares (44-6-2, 20 KO’s) on July 14th in Texas at a still to be determined venue.

It’s unclear why Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum is putting Donaire in with the light hitting former WBA/WBC super flyweight champion Mijares, as he’s not the same fighter he once was and he never had any power to begin. It could be because of how much punishment the 29-year-old Donaire took in beating former WBO super bantamweight champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. by a 12 round split decision last February.

Donaire, who’s not used to taking punishment, took a lot of punishment from Vazquez Jr. and there’s better fighters than him in the division, namely the fighter that Donaire has no interest in fighting because he considers him boring, Rigondeaux. It sure helps to see your competition as boring and then decide you don’t want to fight them. It saves a lot of trouble I imagine.

It looks like Arum is choosing Mijares for Donaire for a couple of reasons. 1. Mijares can’t punch and he’s no threat to hurt Donaire or mark up badly like his last opponent Vazquez Jr. 2. Mijares is Mexican and Arum likes to pack his Texas fight cards with a lot of Mexican fighters to take advantage of the large Mexican communities that live in Texas. Mijares, 30, is recognizable to a lot of Mexican fans for his two years as the WBC super flyweight champion. He beat a number of good fighters like Jorge Arce, Jose Navarro and Alexander Munoz during that time. Although Mijares’ win over Munoz was highly questionable, his wins over other fighter were not. Mijares was a good fighter up until losing three straight fights to Vic Darchinyna and Nehomar Cermeno in 2008 and 2009.

Since 2009, Mijares has won his last eight fights. He captured the IBF super flyweight title in December 2010 with a win over Juan Alberto Rosas and defended it once against Carlos Rueda.

While Mijares accomplished things at super flyweight, he’s not a super bantamweight and he can’t punch. It’s a safe pick for Donaire to fight.