Jorge Arce Again Tries to Leech Headlines From Nonito Donaire's Name (It Worked!)

Jorge Arce, who for seemingly the 200th time won't be fighting Nonito Donaire despite everyone promising that fight was coming, is again using Donaire's name to try and keep his name in boxing news headlines. Hey! Guess what! It worked!

Arce (60-6-2, 46 KO) will be fighting on September 22 against Mauricio Martinez, which is what he's doing instead of fighting Donaire, which was promised and expected and once again isn't going to happen. The Mexican veteran says he still wants to face Donaire "next." Sure. Sure he does.

"I have outlined my strategy very well. Hopefully we'll beat the Panamanian, and then go against the winner of Nonito Donaire and Japan's Toshiaki Nishioka, and then I would add another big win to my record - beating Abner Mares, and snatching the World Boxing Council super bantamweight championship. "

Donaire headlines HBO on October 13 against Toshiaki Nishioka. Mares faces Anselmo Moreno on October 27 on Showtime.

I am fairly confident in saying that no, Jorge Arce doesn't really want to fight either of them, but it's fun to say he does, and given his Warrior Past, people like to think he wouldn't be ducking out of these fights and giving them anything more than lip service, but, well, I'll just say it: That's exactly what he's doing. Sorry, Arce lovers.

Arce last fought on June 9, going to an unfortunate two round no-decision against unheralded Puerto Rican Jesus Rojas, who stormed back from a first round knockdown to fire away toe-to-toe with Arce, which seemed to catch Arce a bit off-guard. Arce pulled out in round two with an injury. Frankly, a lot of people didn't buy it and thought he bailed when the fight got harder than he thought it would be. I've never really made up my mind.

Again, I know it's hard to think that Jorge Arce, who bleeds and fights and yells and eats lollipops and rides horses to the ring, might want to avoid challenges if he can, but ... well? Why doesn't he rematch Rojas? Why has he gotten cold feet with Donaire more than once? Why does he keep talking about big fights, then instead he faces Mauricio Martinez or has pointless rematches with Angky Angkota?

I think what I'm saying is I've grown a little tired of giving Arce a pass just because he's ARCE: WARRIOR WAR MAN OF WAR. He's clearly fronting on some of these issues.