By: Danny Kendrick
Here comes a double shot explosion of fights for the grand finale to the week of fireworks brought to you courtesy of one of the top pound for pound fighters in boxing today, “The Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire continuing his quest to unify the super bantamweight titles against IBF champion Jeffrey Mathebula. Before that one goes down though, Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik continues his personal crusade to get his career back to championship form against stocky power puncher Will Rosinsky. With names like these on the menu, I don’t think there’s gonna be any lack of firepower.
In the supporting cast to the bantamweight title clash we have former undisputed middleweight champion Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik (39-2, 34 KO’s) doing a turn-around on 3 weeks notice off of his TKO victory of Scott Sigmon to face former U.S. light heavyweight champion Will Rosinsky (14-1, 8 KO’s). Like Sigmon, Rosinsky is another shorter opponent, but unlike Sigmon, Rosinsky has significant power that if he’s able to connect flush could put Pavlik in some danger. However, with his much more vast and higher professional level of experience along with his longer stature makes this a highly unlikely possibility. This is a good fight for Pavlik in keeping himself busy in resurrecting his career and also continuing to work the chemistry in only his second fight with new trainer, Robert Garcia. This one shouldn’t go the distance, but Rosinsky has displayed a solid chin to compliment his power punching, but he’s also never been in with this caliber opponent and one who can hit like Pavlik, as well. Kudos to Pavlik in staying focused and determined by taking this fight on such short notice. This is another positive step for the former champion and hopefully, another step that will get him closer to title contention once again.
In the main event is the man considered by most experts and analysts to be the #4 top pound-for-pound fighter in the world and WBO super bantamweight champion, “The Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire, Jr. (28-1, 18 KO’s) versus IBF champion Jeffrey Mathebula (26-3-2, 14 KO’s). After defending his bantamweight crown against previously unbeaten boxing purist, Omar Narvaez and winning a split decision over Wilfredo Vazquez, Jr. to win the WBO super bantamweight crown, Donaire will try to add another title under his belt and bring him closer to unifying the weight division and (hopefully) do it dominating fashion as there have been some doubts from fans and the boxing press as to his stature among the pound for pound rankings with his last 2 victories being somewhat mundane. That along with the ever-so-relentless criticism of his promoter, Bob Arum, has been the cause for quite a lot of media chatter toward the Filipino slugger and most hasn’t been all that complimentary as of late. In Mathebula, he’ll be venturing into somewhat foreign territory since he’ll be the shorter fighter against the rangy Mathebula. Framed something like a smaller Thomas Hearns, the IBF South African native prefers to keep his opponents at distance with his long left jab, also like Hearns, and follow it with a solid overhand and straight right. Unlike Hearns, he doesn’t have quite the sting on the power shots from his right hand, but that’s not to imply that he doesn’t have any at all.
Mathebula also incorporates some good footwork, lead left hooks, uppercuts, and goes to the body fairly well in mixing up his assault. Donaire will certainly have the speed and power advantage, but will have to figure out a way around Mathebula’s long, stiff jab to implement his strengths, which, if he and trainer Robert Garcia have done their homework, he should be able to do since Mathebula has a tendency to drop his left hand after firing the jab. If Donaire starts countering over that early on, it’ll highly likely be a bad night for Mathebula and probably a short one, too. Ideally, Donaire needs to dominate and what I mean by ‘dominate’ is he needs to stop Mathebula to reassure the boxing world of his stature and send a signal to the rest of the top names in the division the way he’s done at 118 and 122 pounds where he established his fearsome reputation. So now we just wait to see if it’s the terror that swarmed all over Wladimir Sidorenko and left Fernando Montiel looking like he got blindsided by Ray Lewis on the gridiron or the Donaire that ho-hum’d his way to a unanimous decision over a smaller Narvaez and squeeked by against Vazquez. Stay tuned ’til tomorrow night….
