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Andile Sidinile, the manager for WBA featherweight titleholder Simpiwe Vetyeka, thinks that Bob Arum is trying to play some mind games by saying that Vetyeka will be the favorite in his May 31 fight in Macao against Nonito Donaire, but that their team is fully confident of their fighter continuing his great run of success.
Vetyeka (26-2, 16 KO) has beaten Daud Yordan and Chris John in back-to-back fights, and the 33-year-old South African may indeed be a lot more dangerous than some suspect against Donaire (32-2, 21 KO), who struggled mightily in his last two bouts, a loss to Guillermo Rigondeaux and a rally TKO of Vic Darchinyan.
"Both Donaire and Darchinyan are not fully fledged featherweights, and Donaire will find out just how it is to face a real featherweight against Vetyeka. Furthermore, Vetyeka is taller than Donaire, and we will use that to our advantage."
... "We want Vetyeka to bulldoze Donaire and these sparring partners will help Vetyeka to do just that, especially against a smaller and short boxer like Donaire."
This is sort of a critical fight for Donaire, whose career has stalled a bit, but there may be some good news for him. Vetyeka is not a tricky southpaw, which Rigondeaux and Darchinyan are, and Nonito may get to fight the sort of counter-punching fight that he prefers if Vetyeka really does try to run him over with physicality and size.