By Chris Williams: Rather than fight at the much bigger Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas on July 14th, WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (28-1, 18 KO’s) will face light hitting fringe contender Cristian Mijares (45-6-2, 21 KO’s) on July 7th at the Home Depot Center in Anaheim, California, according to Philboxing.com.

This is rather disappointing if this venue holds firm, because the July 14th date and venue would have put Donaire-Mijares mismatch fight on the undercard of the proposed fight between Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Zab Judah fight. At least on that card, you could package the fight as a pay-per-view worthy card, albeit one that would likely draw anemic numbers. However, moving Donaire-Mijares to July 7th won’t help it one bit unless they put some quality fighters along with it. It goes without saying that the Donaire vs. Mijares fight isn’t PPV worthy, but I don’t even see it as a good HBO or Showtime fight.

To me, Donaire vs. Mijares is ESPN2 Friday Night Fights material, because Mijares has no power and hasn’t fought anyone good since he got exposed badly by Vic Darchinyan and Nehomar Cermeno in 2008 and 2009. Mijares has won his last nine fights but he hasn’t fought anyone really good during that time. As watered down as the divisions are, a fighter with halfway decent skills can easily 9 fights in a row like Mijares without batting an eye.

It was hoped that Donaire would step up to the plate and fight Guillermo Rigondeaux in his next fight rather than taking the near bottom ranked Mijares. However, with th way that Donaire struggled badly to beat Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. in his last fight, it’s not all that surprising that Donaire is shying away from facing a dangerous puncher/counter puncher like Rigondeaux in order to face a lesser threat in Mijares.

Putting the Mijares-Donaire fight in the Home Depot Center might help the numbers for the fight a little, because there is a large Filipino and Mexican community in the Anaheim area that might be interested in seeing the Mijares vs. Donaire fight. I still think the fight would do better at the Cowboys Stadium, but I Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum has his reasons for wanting to move it to the Home Depot Center.