Mathebula literally towered over the smallish Donaire, and left me and a lot of boxing fans wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow night. If you’ve seen Donaire’s past fights, you’ll noticed that he’s pretty much always had the advantage in height. He’s always been a taller fighter when fighting at flyweight, super flyweight and bantamweight. Even recently, despite moving up in weight, he’s taken on fighters below him like Omar Narvaez. In his last bout, Donaire finally fought someone his own height in Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. and Donaire didn’t look good in that fight. He got a hit a lot, and he wasn’t able to hurt Vazquez Jr. with his shots.
Could it be that Donaire is only good when fighting smaller guys three to five inches shorter than him? I don’t know, but I think we could see Donaire struggle tomorrow night if he’s not able to hurt Mathebula and put him away.. If the fight goes 12 rounds, Donaire is going to take punishment and he won’t be able to fall back on his height and reach to jab on the outside like he did against Rafael Concepcion when he was getting punched around three years ago.
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Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik will be fighting a 10 round bout on the undercard against Will Rosinsky in a test bout for Pavlik to see if he’s ready for bigger and better opposition at 168. Pavlik weighed in at 168.2, and Rosinksy came in at 168.2. Pavlik says he can’t make 160 pounds anymore, which means he’s stuck at this weight. I don’t see a place for Pavlik in this division unless his promoter Bob Arum is going to strategically match him against the lesser fighters. If Arum puts Pavlik in with WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward, Pavlik is going to get beaten worse than he did in his losses to Bernard Hopkins and Sergio Martinez. Pavlik remains what he was in the past – a limited fighter with slow hands and slow feet. He’s not going anywhere in this division. Arum needs to push him up to 175 where the talent is weak and the opportunities are many.
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Official weights:
Nonito Donaire 121.4 – Jeffrey Mathebula 121.8
Kelly Pavlik 168.2 – Will Rosinsky 168.2
Andy Ruiz Jr 255.6 – Jonte Willis 215
Brad Solomon 147 – Hector Munoz 147.4
Jose Roman 137.2 – Rodolfo Armenta 137.4
Eric Flores 134.8 – Raymond Nichol 134.4
Anthony Flores 140 – Cameron Kreal 140
Keandre Gibson 140 – Moris Rodriguez 139.6
Vic Pasillas 124 – Jesus Adame 123.4