By Rob Smith: WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares (25-0-1, 13 KO’s) is one of three possible opponent for WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire’s next fight on April 13th, according to Philboxing.com. The other two are WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux and former two division world champion Vic Darchinyan.
Rigondeaux was the guy that Arum had been talking about wanting to put in with Donaire, but there hasn’t been a lot of interest by Donaire in taking that fight. He prefers to face Mares. However, because of the promotional obstacles involved in trying to negotiate a fight between the Golden Boy promoted Mares and Donaire, a Top Rank fighter, it was thought that it was doable fight. But according to Philboxing.com, Arum is in trying to somehow put the fight together. It’s still a long shot that this fight can be made even with Arum trying hard to set the fight up.
In that case you would have to assume that Darchinyan will be the guy that gets the fight with Donaire because it’s unlikely that Donaire will take the fight with Rigondeaux. Donaire has had opportunities to fight Rigondeaux in the past, but he’s opted for other fighters and he’ll likely do the same in this instance.
A Donaire-Darchinyan fight might be interesting to some boxing fans. Darchinyan used to be a really good fighter at one time, but at 37, he’s on the downside of his career now having lost two out of his last three fights. He was beaten by Donaire by a 5th round knockout in 2007, and then later Darchinyan lost to Joseph Agbeko, Mares, Anselmo Moreno and Shinsuke Yamanaka.
I don’t know why Donaire would want to fight Darchinyan at this point in his career other than to be facing someone with more of a name than Rigondeaux. The negative thing about Donaire fighting Darchinyan is that it’s going to give the perception to some boxing fans that Donaire is just looking to beat older, past their prime fighters. Look at Donaire’s last two opponents Jorge Arce and Toshiaki Nishioka.
Both were on the verge of retirement and no longer what they once were. Donaire beat them both in easy knockout wins, but it almost seemed unsporting because both looked so faded. It would be much more interesting to see Donaire fight someone relevant and not struggling with their career. Darchinyan was a great fighter at flyweight, but the fact of the matter is he’s 37 now and has lost two out of his last three fights.