Donaire eyes spectacular performance against Vazquez - Next

RingTV.com: Did the weight-loss in any way factor your performance against Narvaez?

N D: I believe that it did. The cut from the last time was sort of abrupt. I made a mistake in thinking that I had the whole time to recover. It wasn't your normal 17 hours or 24 hours of recovery.

It was like almost 30 hours, so I thought that that was going to be to my advantage. So I kept my weight as high as I could for as long as I could and tried to cut down in like that last hour.

I was able to do that, but I didn't factor in and calculate that you body needs to recover more than 30 hours and I thought that I would be able to do it.

But overall this time, I think that I'll feel much better because I don't have to cut that much. It's more close to fighting at my real weight right now. I stiill have like a month and a half, and I'm eating and everything.

I'm actually feeling great. I feel like I'm fighting at my real weight class now. I don't have to cut down so much and I think that I'm really going to feel better in this fight.

RingTV.com: Do you believe that Vazquez's more aggressive approach will be more geared to a better fight than was Narvaez's defensive style?

N D: Definitely. Vazquez is somewhat defensive, but he has a lot of offensive moves. He's a good fighter and one of those kids who just has it in their blood when he steps into the ring. 

I think that this will be a better Vazquez than the one that fought Arce, and he just gets better and better and better in the ring. So it's going to be a bigger challenge for me to figure him out.

But I'm lucky that he's a little bit more textbook, but he's learning to move well and to throw his jab well and to put more speed and power into his punches.

He does have a heavier hand. So, you really have to look out for that. But I haven't studied him. Figuring him out is one thing that me and [trainer Robert Garcia] are going to work on.

I think that it's going to be an exciting fight because he's out there fighting for a title and he's out to prove himself. The thing with him is that he wants to show to everyone, his father and everyone, that he can still do it.

He wants to show that against a person like myself who has the credentials of being in great fights. I think that he's going to go out there and be smart, but he's going to do everything possible in every way to win this fight.

He will be defensive if he needs to be, offensive when he needs to be. I really won't know until I get in there, but I think that this fight is going to be an entertaining fight.

You're looking at a kid who is getting better and better in Vazquez. I like to press forward and he likes to press forward. He likes to box and I like to box. I think we both want to be in a spectacular fight.

Photos by Naoki Fukuda

Lem Satterfield can be reached at lemuel.satterfield@gmail.com