By Chris Williams: Only 3200 fans showed up for last night’s fight between WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (29-1, 18 KO’s) and IBF super bantamweight champion Jeffrey Mathebula (26-4-2, 14 KO’s) in their unification bout at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. The venue seats 27,000 tops, and to see only a measly 3200 show up to watch Donaire fight, it’s pretty sad.

Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum told fightnews.com “No, we weren’t disappointed. We had thirty-two hundred and we had it set for thirty-five, thirty-six hundred. We were happy with the crowd, that’s what we expected.”

I wonder if Arum on the level about this? Whether it be 3500 or 3600, those are still really low numbers for a fighter that some of Donaire’s fans who see him as the next Manny Pacquiao. If he can’t even bring in 3500 fans that suggests he’s got a long, long ways to go to where he can draw 40,000 fans like Pacquiao did for his fight against Antonio Margarito.

Donaire is #4 on The Ring’s pound-for-pound list, but it looks like he can’t draw. Oh well, at least he’s still #4 on the list. I personally have Donaire #25 on the pound for pound list, well behind guys like Guillermo Rigondeaux and Abner Mares.

As for the fight last Saturday, Donaire defeated Mathebula by a 12 round unanimous decision that that highlighted a ton of flaws in Donaire’s game starting with his over-reliance on his left hook. He doesn’t throw combinations and seems to focus on throwing lefts all the time for some reason. Mathebula was able to neutralize Donaire’s offense by sticking a jab in his face all night long. This is exactly what Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. did to Donaire last February in their fight and had Donaire looking frustrated and helpless. Donaire was lucky that Mathebula’s jab didn’t have much power, because he would have been in a world of hurt had he been facing someone that could jab and punch with power.