By Allan Fox: Former WBA Super World featherweight champion Nicholas Walters (26-0, 21 KOs) will be returning to the ring three months from now on December 12th against an opponent to be determined at super featherweight on HBO, according to Dan Rafael. Walters won’t be fighting former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa.
It’s not surprising that fight won’t get made because Gamboa is kind of in limbo right now given that the promotional company that he’s signed to SMS Promotions is in bankruptcy.
The 29-year-old Walters last fought in June in defeating Miguel Marriaga by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision. It was not a competitive bout, and in hindsight it probably shouldn’t have been made at all. Walters needed a better opponent for him to show off the stuff that he could do, and Marriaga wasn’t good enough to really test him.
One negative from that fight was that Walters failed to make weight, and he subsequently lost his WBA title. For the fight itself, Walters rehydrated up in weight 19 pounds to come into the fight at 145lbs. The huge size difference between Walters and Marriaga was tremendous.
There was no way that Marriaga, and likely most other featherweights, could have dealt with the size of Walters on that night. Moving up to super featherweight is a logical move for Walters, because it’s clearly going to be too tough for him to keep draining down to 126 to fight the lighter guys at that weight.
At the same time it would be a risky thing for Top Rank to setup important fights for Walters if they’re not sure if he’ll be able to make weight or not. But even at 130, it’s unclear if Walters will be able to make the fight. If he’s going to be rehydrating to 145 every time after the weigh-in, then you can imagine that it will only be a matter of time before Walters can no longer make the super featherweight limit as well.
It might be better for Walters to simply move up to the lightweight division to fight at 135lbs. Lightweight Felix Verdejo, who fought on the Walters-Marriaga undercard last June, rehydrated to 145 after making weight at 133 for his fight against Ivan Najera. If a lightweight as big as Verdejo is rehydrating to 145, then that’s a pretty good indication that Walters is really a lightweight rather than a super featherweight or featherweight.
“The main thing is we want to get [Walters] back in there and see what he can do at junior lightweight,” Arum said via ESPN.com. “I know a fight with Gamboa is not happening.”
I’m not even sure that a fight between Gamboa and Walters would have taken place even if Gamboa’s promoter’s company wasn’t in bankruptcy. I doubt that Arum would make that fight, and I really doubt he’ll ever make that fight if Gamboa eventually signs up with Mayweather Promotions. The fight would be good for Walters’ career, but I still don’t think Arum would make the fight.
It’s too bad that Walters’ career has lost momentum with him losing his featherweight title, and now him moving up in weight. Walters was doing really well in 2014 after beating Vic Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire in back to back fights.
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