(Photo: Chris Farina/Top Rank) By Chris Williams: If WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire is able to defeat IBF super bantamweight champion Jeffrey Mathebula in their unification bout on Saturday night, World Boxing Council (WBC) president Jose Sulaiman is interested in having WBC Emeritus WBC super bantamweight champion Toshiaki Nishioka and Donaire fight for the WBC Diamond super bantamweight strap before the end of the year.

The Diamond belt was created not too long ago by the WBC to be a belt for the best fighters in a division to be competing over. In this case, it’s incredibly premature to be having Donaire fight for the Diamond belt because even if he wins the IBF title against Mathebula on Saturday night, he won’t have proved that he’s better than the WBA champ Guillermo Rigondeaux and WBC regular champion Abner Mares.

The only thing that Donaire will have proved is that he can beat a little known paper champion in Mathebula, which to me isn’t enough for Donaire to be fighting for the Diamond title. I guess Sulaiman feels that Donaire can do this because he’ll have two titles in his possession and that will give him weight to say he’s the top dog in the division along with Nishika, who some people see as the best fighter at 122. I’m not one of them. I see Nishioka as like #7, behind Rigondeaux, Mares, Donaire, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., Rico Ramos and Ricardo Cardoba.

If Donaire would fight Mares or Rigondeaux and prove that he’s better than them, then I could understand the WBC putting up their Diamond strap for a fight against Nishioka. But to have Donaire fighting for that belt without having fought those guys, it’s the equivalent of fighting for a trophy without having competed against the main guys. It’ll be pretty empty.