By Chris Williams: WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) may be about to step it up a level and face either WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares or WBA champ Guillermo Rigondeaux. Donaire, 30, says he’ll leave it up to his management team to determine who he’ll be fighting next, but he definitely wants Mares as his next opponent.
Donaire said to eastsideboxing.com “I’m a very versatile fighter. I can fight in multiple styles. The style that I’m fighting with at this time, being smart and setting my shots up properly, anyone will fall…it doesn’t matter who it is…Mares would probably try to smother me…Rigondeaux would more than likely try to box me.”
I’d be surprised if Top Rank promoter Bob Arum chose to match Donaire up against either Rigondeaux or Mares, because the chances would be too high that those guys would beat Donaire and wreck the chances of a Donaire gravy train. Arum’s #1 fighter Manny Pacquiao is getting old, and we just saw him get knocked cold.
That fight showed that Pacquiao isn’t going to be around for too much longer, because he’s now taking loses and getting dropped. There has to be a fighter that takes over for Pacquiao in bringing in the Filipino boxing fans in high numbers, and right now Donaire is probably the #2 most popular Filipino fighter after Pacquiao. But once Pacquiao gone, Donaire will move up to the #1 spot, but it won’t be good if Donaire faces Mare and/or Rigondeaux and gets whipped before that happens.
That would create a situation where Donaire would have to fight a rematch with the guy that beat him, and if he gets beaten a second time by Mares or Rigondeaux then Donaire will be a much weaker gravy trainer fighter than he would be if he were to be steered around those guys and matched against more older or smaller guys like Toshiaki Nishioka and Jorge Arce.
Donaire destroyed Arce last Saturday night in a 3rd round knockout win, but the boxing world already had written this fight off as a terrible mismatch well ahead of the fight, so it wasn’t any kind of surprise that Donaire was able to beat an old small guy like Arce.
Right now Donaire’s confidence is sky-high from all the over-matched and undersized opposition that Arum has been feeding him, but that confidence will take a huge drop if Donaire fights Mares or Rigondeaux because I see both guys beating Donaire.
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