A Closer Look at Jamie McDonnell

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Monaco, take two. There are not many boxers who fight in the less than modest surroundings of the principality of Monaco once. To go there, where the audience allow polite applause between each round, twice and fight the same man again must be some kind of a record. Just what record you would want to claim is questionable, but Jamie McDonnell 29-2- 1, 13 KO’s, returned on November 4th to try and prove that his first win against Liborio Solis, 25-5-2, 11 KO’s, was not a fluke nor was it a “home” decision.

I thought he had lost the first fight and was very fortunate not to have therefore lost his belt; this was to be redemption. This time round, in what is confirmed as his last fight as a bantamweight, McDonnell looked to put that niggling view right with a win that could not be disputed. To end the night with a cut head and a technical draw was highly frustrating as it started to look a decent fight at the weight and at world level.

In a year in which British fighters have lost titles quicker than the Kardashians spend money, he has been impressive as a bantamweight, having held the IIBF, British, European and Commonwealth titles at that weight in a 12-year career that is very far from over. It has seen two losses – back to back in 2009 – but since then he has hardly put a foot wrong.

The landscape out there for McDonnell, now that he is going up in weight, in the super bantamweight category, is rich with the likes of WBC belt holder Rey Vargas, 30-0, 22 KO’s, WBA super champ, Guillermo Rigondeaux, 17-0, 11 KO’s, WBO champion Jesse Magdaleno, 25-0, 18 KO’s, interim WBA champion, Moises Flores 25-0, 13 KO’s, ordinary WBA champion Daniel Roman, 23-2-1 9 KO’s (I thought the WBA were simplifying things…), or the IBF champion, Ryosuke Iwasa, 24-2, 18 KO’s. Apart from Rigondeaux, against whom most would look ordinary, McDonnell would not look out of place in any of their companies. Of course, the super fight at super featherweight between Rigondeaux and Lomachenko means that is a moot point but we now see a vacancy at the top of the WBA tree if Rigondeaux moves up in weight permanently. Could Flores take on Roman for the super title and unite belts as the WBA say they want but on which they seem to be dragging their heels?

McDonnell, after what happened in Monaco will have to re-evaluate his strategy. Vargas has his defence in early December against Oscar Negrete, 17-0, 12 KO’s and let’s be honest few think he will struggle. Magdaleno is without a defence at present having been the WBO champ since 2016. He has defended once in 2017 and should be ripe for a defence early 2018 if not by the end of this year? Roman won his belt this year and again with no defence on the roster could be a decent target and as McDonnell holds the WBA title at bantamweight, should he get through his defence, then following that bodies’ straight (or crooked) lines it could see him up against interim champ, Moises Flores before possibly taking on Daniel Roman. Iwasa won his belt in September so a defence in 2018 is the more likely. It means there are possible matches out there.

None of these champions, Rigondeaux excepted, are household names in the UK and me effort would have to go into making the fight, but we know that McDonnell could do with a big fight in the UK at some point.

The division he is leaving is embarrassed by the riches that come with Ryan Burnett, 18-0, 9 KO’s, Zolani Tete, 25-3, 20 KO’s, Paul Butler, 25-1, 13 KO’s, Shinsuke Yamanaka 27-1-2, 19 KO’s, and Luis Nery, 25-0, 19 KO’s, holding the belts. Being unable to get into really good shape for the weights is the issue for McDonnell and his sojourn in the south coast of France, for the second time against Solis, was all about looking good, catching the eye, taking the win and waving goodbye to bantamweight – not how it all turned out though…

You cannot underestimate how much it means to McDonnell to make people sit up again and feel good about him. Suffering the indignity of the WBA ordering this fight because of the circumstances around the last one is bad enough but knowing that many within the game thought he lost is a true dignity stripper in the McDonnell house.

It could have all been different had McDonnell been able to sort out a domestic defence with former IBF titlist, Paul Butler, then Solis would have been left hanging but that was a fight that could not be made and, so he had to face Solis again with the chance to put things right. Solis had even been offered and had accepted stand aside money to allow McDonnell to face Butler with the proviso that he would have faced the winner of the UK based battle –he had the opportunity of just going straight for the belt, once more. We can obviously sympathise not just with our own UK fighter but also with Solis. This does not leave anyone in a good place – what next for him? Possibly the route down which McDonnell would have gone had he stayed at bantamweight or that fight with Butler? Who knows but we in the UK will be on the McDonnell bandwagon hoping for a better 2018 for him.

[si-contact-form form=’2′]