By Rob Smith: If you’re a big fan of 5’4” Jorge Arce (61-6-2, 46 KO’s), you might not want to tune in to watch him fight on Showtime this Saturday night against WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) because he’s going to probably get beaten pretty badly in this fight at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas, USA. Most boxing experts are picking Donaire to win, and they’re unanimously picking him to win by a knockout.
This is a fight that reminds me a lot of the mismatch that Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum put together with Manny Pacquiao against a badly faded 40-year-old Shane Mosley last year in a pay per view bout. I think it was just wrong to put this fight together and ask boxing fans to pay to see it, because the outcome was written in stone before the first punch was thrown, and I think the same of the Arce-Donaire fight.
Arce is a nice character, and he’s had a good career, but he doesn’t belong in the ring with Donaire, and he doesn’t belong at super bantamweight. Donaire is going to be able to toy with Arce if he wants to before lowering the boom on him with a left hook.
Arce’s aggressive attack-style offense is going to lead him straight into Donaire’s right hook counter punches for as long as this fight lasts, which probably won’t be that long, and we’ll likely see Arce knocked out in a similar fashion as Pacquiao was against Juan Manuel Marquez last Saturday night.
Arce’s a warrior and he recently surprised boxing fans when he pulled off an upset by stopping Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. in a 12th round knockout last year in May, but that was a come from behind knockout. Arce was going to lose that fight. That’s not going to happen on Saturday, and I don’t think Arce could beat Vazquez Jr. a second time if they were to fight again.
Arce will be lucky if he makes it three rounds in this fight because he’s going to be catching a lot of leather.
Arum needs to stop matching Donaire with old fighters and start looking to put him in with relevant fighters like Abner Mares or Guillermo Rigondeaux.