By Chris Williams: #2 WBO Nonito Donaire (35-3, 23 KOs) will be attempting to revive his stalled career tonight in a fight for the vacant WBO 122lb title against #1 WBO Cesar Juarez (17-3, 13 KOs) of Mexico on truTV at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
This is a very important fight for the 33-year-old Donaire because he’s lost half of his last four fights, and there are a lot of people who feel that he’s an over-the-hill fighter. Donaire has won his last two fights against poor opposition in beating Anthony Settoul and William Prado. But before that, Donaire struggled in three straight fights against Nicholas Walters, Simpiwe Vetyeka, Vic Darchinyan and Guillermo Rigondeaux.
You can’t count Donaire’s last two fights because those have been against soft touches, but you have to take a serious look at how poorly Donaire fought against Walters, Vetyeka, Darchinyan and Rigondeaux. Fortunately for Donaire, the World Boxing Organization decided to rank a mediocre fighter like Juarez as their No.1 guy, because they’re basically handing the WBO title to Donaire by having done this. If Donaire loses then he should hang up his gloves, because there are much better fighters in the super middleweight division than Juarez. I think the division has moved on since Donaire was in his prime three years ago.
None of the other sanctioning bodies has the 24-year-old Juarez ranked in their top 15, because they obviously don’t see him as a top tier type of guy, and neither do I. But if Donaire can’t even beat a guy like Juarez, then that tells you how far he’s slipped as a fighter since he was voted the 2012 Fighter of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association.
Donaire hasn’t done anything since he won that award, and you can make a strong argument that Donaire didn’t even deserve the aware in the first place because he didn’t beat anyone good to get it other than defeating two shot fighters in Jorge Arce and Toshiaki Nishioka, and then beating two very average fighters in Jeffrey Mathebula and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr.
None of those fighters are top tier guys today three years later, and that tells you a little bit about how easily the Boxing Writers Association gives away awards.
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WBO Latino lightweight champion Felix Verdejo (18-0, 13 KOs) defends his title against Josenilson Dos Santos (27-3, 17 KOs) in a 12 round bout in the co-feature fight. I would say this has the potential to upstage the main event fight between Donaire and Juarez, but I can’t because it’s a mismatch.
The 22-year-old Verdejo needs to be fighting opposition than this, because he’s wasting time with his career with the guys that Top Rank is feeding him. Verdejo is capable of much better than fighting guys like Dos Santos and Ivan Najera.
I think Verdejo is ready to start fighting the lightweight champions now like WBO champ Terry Flanagan, WBA champion Anthony Crolla or WBC champion Jorge Linares. Any one of those fights would be good for Verdejo, because he has the size, punching power and talent to win all of those match-ups.
Top Rank needs to move Verdejo soon towards a title before he grows out of the lightweight division. You’d like to see Verdejo fight for at least one of the lightweight titles before he moves up to light welterweight to challenge the likes of WBO 140lb champion Terence Crawford or WBC light welterweight champion Viktor Postol if their promoter Bob Arum will allow those fights to take place.
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