Nonito Donaire and Alexandro Santiago will have to wait a little longer for their vacant bantamweight title fight.
The good news is that it will now appear before a far wider audience.
BoxingScene.com has learned that Donaire-Santiago will no longer take place this Saturday at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas as originally scheduled. The vacant WBC bantamweight title fight will instead land on the undercard of the Errol Spence-Terence Crawford Showtime Pay-Per-View event July 29 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The exact reason for the switch remains unclear as this goes to publication, other than there was the need to replace an undercard bout that will no longer appear on the Spence-Crawford show.
Boxing Scene has learned that this weekend’s Showtime card will remain a tripleheader, with a fight from the undercard to move up to the main show.
The two-week delay doesn’t change the stakes to fill the vacancy left behind by former undisputed bantamweight king Naoya Inoue (24-0, 21KOs).
Santiago will enter his second career title fight. The 27-year-old Tijuana native held then-IBF junior bantamweight titlist Jerwin Ancajas to a twelve-round draw in their September 2018 clash in Oakland, California.
An eight-win streak followed before a competitive ten-round defeat to then-unbeaten Gary Antonio Russell in November 2021. Santiago has since won three in a row, the notable of which was a seventh-round knockout of Antonio Nieves in their October 29 rematch after having previously fought to an August 2016 split decision draw.
Donaire (42-7, 28KOs) aims to once again break his own record as the oldest fighter to win a bantamweight title.
He will be 40 years old when he enters the ring. A win by the Fil-Am boxing superstar and former four-division titlist—who is now based out of Las Vegas—would set another record which he already shares, by entering his fourth bantamweight title reign. He first won the WBC and WBO bantamweight titles in a rousing second-round knockout of Fernando Montiel. The win saw Donaire—who was just 29 at the time—become a two-division champ, having held the IBF flyweight championship and a secondary version of the WBA junior bantamweight title. He since claimed the lineal, IBF and WBO junior bantamweight champion in a run that saw Donaire earn 2012 Fighter of the Year accolades, followed by a brief stay as WBA featherweight titlist in 2014 after ending his 122-pound championship reign in an April 2013 loss to Guillermo Rigondeaux.
Donaire entered his second bantamweight title reign with a fourth-round injury stoppage of unbeaten WBA titlist Ryan Burnett in November 2018, just 13 days shy of his 36th birthday to establish a divisional record. The reign lasted just over a year before losing a twelve-round decision to Inoue in their November 2019 WBA/IBF unification bout and World Boxing Super Series final. He resurfaced 18 months later to break his own record as the oldest fighter to win a bantamweight title following a May 2021 fourth-round knockout of unbeaten Nordine Oubaali at 38 years old.
The reign once again ended in a loss to Inoue, suffering a second-round knockout in their rematch last June 7 in Saitama, Japan. Donaire has not fought since then, waiting out the sordid bantamweight title picture.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox