Mares wants Donaire fight

By ESB - 11/12/2012 - Comments

By Kevin Chittenden: WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares (25-0-1, 13 KO’s) badly wants a unification bout against WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire after beating Anselmo Moreno (33-2-1, 12 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California.

After the fight, Mares said he wanted to fight Donaire next and is hoping that Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum will let that fight happen. The last I checked it doesn’t like Arum is going to do that. However, Arum might possibly be open to letting Mares fight WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, who is also in the Top Rank stable.

I’m not sure if Mares would like the idea of taking that fight, though, because it’s not the big money fight that a bout against Donaire would be. But it doesn’t look like Arum will let Donaire fight Mares. For that fight to happen Mares might need to join Arum’s Top Rank stable when his contract with Golden Boy Promotions runs out in the future.

Then Mares could get the fight against Donaire possibly and Rigondeaux. That’s about all Arum has in terms of well known super bantamweights in his stable. I guess Mares could always fight fringe contender Robert Marroquin, the guy that Rigondeaux recently beat but I doubt that’s an appealing option for Mares.

Mares was able to pressure Moreno continuously last Saturday and keep him from getting space to land his pot shots. It wasn’t a pretty fight, especially with Mares landing a lot of low blows. The referee counted a knockdown where it looked like Moreno stumbled while moving rather than from a shot. He did get hit while in the process of falling down, but it was hard to see that as a legitimate knockdown. The referee later took a point away from Moreno for pulling down on Mares’ head. Oddly enough, the referee never took a point away from Mares for his low blows and he threw a lot of them in the fight.