By Dan Ambrose: Abner Mares (26-1-1, 14 KO’s) has suffered a rib injury during training, and he won’t be able to make the February 15th rematch against WBC featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez (55-8, 47 KO’s). There’s still no date for when the fight can be rescheduled, and it might be a while before the 28-year-old Mares recovers from the injury.
That’s probably a good thing for him, because he was badly hurt in his 1st round knockout loss to Gonzalez last August, and the more time that goes by the better for Mares. But more than that, he needs to change his fighting style because he can’t go into a rematch against the hard hitting Gonzalez using the same aggressive fighting style that he used last time.
Mares took some big head shots from Gonzalez in that fight, and it’s not surprising that Mares ended up on the canvas wondering what hit him. Mares also took some brutal punishment to the head in his fight against Daniel Ponce De Leon last May. Mares won the fight by a 9th round knockout, but he was hit way too many times to the head by De Leon in that fight. Those kinds of head shots that Mares took has a way of shortening your career, and I wasn’t surprised in the least to see Mares getting knocked out in his very next fight against Gonzalez. The De Leon fight might have taken a lot out of Mares and made him susceptible to getting knocked out by Gonzalez.
“I got a call from directly Abner and he said that he suffered a rib injury last week in sparring and that he tried to see if he could shake it off but he had to go and see the doctor and that the doctor told him he should not have any contact for several weeks,” Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer told ESPN. “So that necessitates that we move the date of the fight and it will not happen on February 15th.”
It might be a good idea for Mares to be fighting Gonzalez immediately. That seems like a really dumb idea by Mares, but he’s got an ego from all wins and he probably isn’t thinking things through clearly. Putting Mares back in the ring with a puncher like Gonzalez is worst thing you can do. Mares should be taking it easy with a 2-3 tuneups to see where his head is at before getting back in the ring with Gonzalez to risk getting knocked out again in the 1st round.
Comments are closed.