Donaire: All set to move up to featherweight

On Saturday, Oct. 22 (Oct. 23 in the Philippines),Nonito Donaire (26-1, 18 KOs) defends his World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight titles at the 4,500-seat Madison Square Garden’s WaMu Theater in New York against the 36-year old Argentine southpaw, Omar Narvaez (35-0-2, 19 KOs). Narvaez, who represented Argentina in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney, respectively, is the reigning junior bantamweight/super flyweight champion. He is going up the bantamweight ranks for the chance to meet Donaire. Narvaez is the first 2000 Olympics boxer to win a major world title.

Interestingly, the Oct. 22 fight of Donaire is his first and last defense of his two titles (he intends to move up to the more lucrative and challenging 122-pound junior featherweight division) and, rather interestingly too, the Filipino Flash will go up against the diminutive (5’3”) Narvaez who lost in the elimination round at the Sydney Olympics to Ukraine’s Vladimir Sidorenko. Donaire decked the Ukranian three times before finishing him off in the fourth round to win the vacant WBC Continental Americas bantamweight title. It was the first time in his professional career that Sidorenko was KO’d.

Donaire’s victory over Sidorenko paved the way for the former’s second round knockout of three-division champion Fernando Montiel of Mexico on Feb. 19, 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino at Las Vegas. With the spectacular knockout victory over Montiel, Donaire captured the WBO and WBC bantamweight titles.

Narvaez brings with him 299 rounds of boxing into ring after turning pro on Dec. 16, 2000 with a first round knockout of Daniel Monzon in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Narvaez won the WBO flyweight title on July 13, 2002 by a unanimous decision over Adonis Rivas in Buenos Aires. Like Donaire’s fight against Sidorenko, on paper, this forthcoming bout versus Narvaez, makes sense given the records of the two fighters. Narvaez, a grizzled veteran who’s not too well known outside South America and Europe, held the flyweight title for seven years, from 2002 to 2009 successfully defending it 16 times.

Narvaez’s last defense was against Rayonta Whitfield whom he TKO’d in the 12th round on Feb. 7, 2009 in Puerto Madryn. With that victory, Narvaez broke the Argentine national record of 15 defenses held by middleweight boxing great, Carlos Monzon. He won the vacant junior bantamweight crown, which was last held by another potential Donaire opponent, Jorge Arce, in 2010 and has defended it three times.

Narvaez is known to have a strong chin. In an interview with Dan Rafael of ESPN.com, Top Rank promoter Todd deBoef said that Narvaez is “a pressure fighter who will come to Nonito and you couldn’t ask for anything else. He will put pressure on (Donaire) and be there all night. We felt that from a television and fan point of view, this could be a very crowd-pleasing fight”.

One drawback however of Narvaez is he’s eight years older than Donaire who is now one of the world’s top five pound-for-pound boxers. At 5’3”, he is an inch or two smaller than Sidorenko and Montiel, both of whom the 5’7” Donaire finished early in the fight with the help of stiff left jabs which kept his smaller opponents at bay before delivering the coup de grace.

Top Ranks’s Carl Moretti , who believes that Narvaez is an ideal fighter to face Donaire, told Rafael that “(Narvaez) is small, but Donaire is going to be bigger than any bantamweight because you are basically looking at a featherweight fighting at bantamweight. Donaire is going to grow into the featherweight division, so the size factor will be there no matter who he fights. He has freakish size, like Thomas Hearns when he was at welterweight. So you have to come up with the toughest style and toughest guy to challenge him. (Narvaez) is an undefeated southpaw, clearly experienced and a champion in his own right. He brings tremendous credentials to the ring.” 

Narvaez reminds one of the late Pascual Perez, Argentina’s first world boxing champion and another Argentine legend in the mould of Monzon. Perez (84-7-1, 58 KOs) won the world flyweight title on Nov. 26, 1954 against Japan’s Yoshio Shirai over 15 rounds in Tokyo.

In many respects, Narvaez and Perez have many similarities. To begin with, both campaigned in the flyweight division. Like the 5’3” Narvaez, the diminutive Perez was an Olympian with the latter winning the gold medal in the 1948 London Olympics. Narvaez however was not successful in the two times he represented Argentina in the Olympics.

The fight should be interesting for as long as Narvaez manages to stay on his feet which we doubt Donaire will allow him to for all 12 rounds.