By Miguel Rivera
Abner Mares is confident that he will be able to continue his career after the surgery he had on his right eye on Wednesday of last week, an he's just waiting for the recovery to play out in order to evaluate if he can return to the ring in this year or next.
The three-time world champion will once again visit specialist Steven Stein Schreiber on Wednesday to see how the recovery will span after the operation, and from there he will have more information of how long he should wait, but also makes it clear that he will not rush his return at this point in his career.
Mares withdrew from a planned fight on February 9 against Gervonta Davis. Initially it was announced that he suffered an injury to his right elbow, but it was actually a retinal detachment in the right eye.
The WBA super featherweight champion will now instead face former world champion Hugo Ruiz.
"I have never been told not to fight again. We hope that my eye recovers as well as it did with my left eye and look, 11 years ago my left eye was damaged and I became a four-time champion in three divisions, and hopefully with the right eye, I just have to listen to the doctor and trust that everything goes well," Mares told ESPN Deportes.
Abner explained that he underwent surgery last week and the only thing he has done is to rest.
"We are going to see the doctor and he will tell me if everything is going well, if I need more rest, maybe even a new operation, even though they never mentioned it to me, there will be a 90 day of suspension and I have perfect time for a recovery. I'm not going to rush," Mares said.
"There have been fighters who had a similar problem and returned immediately to the gym wanting to move forward, but I have to be smart. With the proper time it can heal well and I can fight again and I am more than happy with that. If I can fight mid-year I will be just fine, if I can fight by the end of the year it will be fine, and if I can't fight until the next year, it will be fine, there's no problem."