By Chris Williams: WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares (25-0-1, 13 KO’s) made it very clearly that he BADLY wants to fight a unification bout against WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) next. However, there’s no word from Donaire’s promoters at Top Rank if they’ll let Mares fight him and have a sinking suspicion that they won’t.

Mares fights for Golden Boy Promotions, whereas Donaire fights for Top Rank. As many boxing fans already know those two promotional companies sometimes have problems agreeing on fights between them. I doubt things will change anytime soon in that respect. However, I do think Bob Arum of Top Rank might be interested in having one of his fighters in his stable take on Mares, but unfortunately for Mares it’s not the guy that he badly wants to fight.

The only fighters in the Top Rank stable that I think Arum will let Mares fight are WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux OR fringe contender Robert Marroquin. It’s all gravy for Arum and Top Rank if they match Marroquin or Rigondeaux up against Mares because there’s not much to lose if those guys get beaten by Mares.

Those guys aren’t huge stars in boxing and it’s questionable whether either of them will ever get to that point. But by facing Mares they’ll have a chance, such as it is, at trying to beat him and they’ll get a lot of attention from fighting him.

Rigondeaux has a pretty good chance of beating Mares if he can handle his inside fighting ability. Rigondeaux would probably have to KO Mares to beat him because he won’t be able to outwork him because Mares tends to throw a lot of shots and has a ton of energy. In contrast, Rigondeaux is a pot shot fighter that likes to stay on the outside. He’s kind of like Anselmo Moreno in that respect, and that’s not going to work against a busy inside fighter like Mares.

He’ll take the fight to the inside against Rigondeaux every time and unless Rigondeaux can KO him or hang on the inside, Mares will win. I’ve never seen a fight where Rigondeux fought on the inside for any length of time. Marroquin might be able to stun Mares with some of his big shots, but I can’t see him troubling him.

It’ll be a good payday for Marroquin if he could get that fight, but he’s not going to that offer. He’s not ranked enough and there’s no upside to Mares fighting him. I don’t think Golden Boy will say yes to Rigondeaux either. They want Donaire because he means money, and Rigondeaux is just brings trouble without the big money.

Rigondeaux will be fighting on December 15th on the Donaire vs. Jorge Arce undercard against Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym (48-2, 33 KO’s) at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas, USA.