Donaire Jr. gets another shot, faces 26-year-old champ

FORMER world champion Nonito Donaire Jr. gets another opportunity to be a world champion again as he’s set to challenge World Boxing Association (WBA) bantamweight super champion Ryan Burnett in the bantamweight tournament of the World Boxing Super Series.

The unbeaten Burnett was the top seed and picked Donaire Jr. as his challenger in the quarterfinals of the tournament.

WBA bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue was the second to pick and chose Juan Carlos Payano as his challenger.

World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight Zolani Tete was left with Mikhail Aloyan as his opponent because International Boxing Federation (IBF) bantamweight king Emmanuel Rodriguez is already slated to face mandatory challenger Jason Maloney.

The 26-year-old Burnett became a world champion after dethroning IBF bamtamweight champion Lee Haskins by a one-sided unanimous decision. He unified the IBF and WBA bantamweight titles after another lopsided unanimous verdict over Zhanat Zhakiyanov four months later.

Burnett was forced to relinquish his IBF title and defended his WBA super title with yet another convincing unanimous decision over challenger Yonfrez Parejo in March.

Meanwhile, the 35year-old Donaire Jr. has been on a rollercoaster ride in his last four fights. After a successful title defense of his WBO super bantamweight belt against Zsolt Bedak in Cebu City in 2016, Donaire Jr. lost his title with a unanimous decision defeat at the hands of Jessie Magdaleno. He then bounced back witha a unanimous decision over Ruben Garcia Hernandez before losing to Carl Frampton in an interim WBO featherweight fight in April.

Donaire Jr. is 38-5 with 24 knockouts, while Burnett is 19-0 with nine knockouts.