As soon as Andre Berto?s biceps injury Monday wiped out Berto?s Feb. 11 rematch with Victor Ortiz, Nonito Donaire?s bout Saturday against Wilfredo Vasquez Jr. became boxing?s most important match in the near future.
There hasn?t been a match of Berto-Ortiz II importance since Dec. 17, when Oakland?s Andre Ward dominated Carl Froch to win the Showtime Super Six and sewed up the 2011 fighter of the year award he won last week from the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Berto-Ortiz I, featuring two knockdowns apiece and an upset decision victory for Ortiz, is generally acknowledged to be the 2011 fight of the year.
Donaire, the Filipino Flash who lives in San Mateo, is credited with the knockout of the year for his spectacular second-round disposal of Fernando Montiel last February in their bantamweight showdown. But Donaire?s super-bantamweight debut this weekend has not been eliciting much bated breath, despite the likelihood that 20,000 will attend the fight in San Antonio at the Alamodome and the certainty the bout will air on HBO.
Although Donaire-Vasquez is the most important bout on the card, it?s the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Marco Antonio Rubio middleweight bout that is attracting the big crowd, even though it?s another virtual exhibition for the unbeaten but untested Chavez. Much of the San Antonio crowd will consist of Mexican nationals, and most of the rest will consist of Mexican-Americans.
Still, Donaire, who has been a world champion at 112 and 118 and the de facto champ at 115, is facing a test at the new weight (122), in a championship bout against a former titleholder, even though the Puerto Rican Vasquez, like Chavez, gets a lot of his juice from being the son of a legend. Had Vasquez not been beaten last year by the aging overblown superflyweight Jorge Arce, Donaire-Vasquez would seem compelling indeed.
Now, as we?ll explore Thursday in the forecast for this bout, anyone who really knows who Donaire is probably feeling certain he?ll win Saturday.
There was no such certainty about Ortiz-Berto, so that was the bout we all wanted to see the most.
At the very least, Donaire-Vasquez has loomed as a suitable makeup date for Nonito and HBO, who were disappointed, as we all were, by the lack of intensity at New York?s Madison Square Garden for Donaire?s most recent bout. In that one, on Oct. 22, undersized challenger Omar Narvaez refused to engage Donaire, and Nonito won every round of a snoozer.
Saturday?s card is on HBO?s primetime Championship Boxing series, not the Boxing After Dark version Donaire headlined against Narvaez. For that reason, as well as the presence of all those Mexicans who may be just discovering the Filipino Flash, Saturday is an important day for Donaire.
He?s already regarded among the top three or four boxers in the world pound-for-pound, and the Bay Area media have been acknowledging his presence nearly as much as Ward?s in the past year, but Donaire still is not well enough known to casual boxing fans outside his native Philippines to be considered a bankable star. He turns 30 this year, and every break like Berto?s injury counts.
