This is the right answer, high speed and high workrate, Mares is fast on all counts. In response to my earlier post, yeah, whites are clumsy in general, but they come from such a huge genetic mix its more difficult to categorize. The little quick guys like Willie Pep and Wayne Mcculloch or Paulie M seem a different species than the Klitschkos or Valuev. You just don't generally see this variety from Mexico in particular: they are all successful in the smaller weight classes and lack a certain mobility of foot that tends to be natural to the black athlete. The biggest disparity you could find would be probably Chris Arreola and Abner Mares, but even then Arreola is unusual and a stand out for being so big, successful, and a non-puerto rican hispanic. Even Vargas is unusual in being so successful beyond welter. There is a genetic predisposition to muscle type which can be marginally changed. I will never be a distance runner but I will always be ok at sprints, but within a bottleneck or closed population I think it is probably 30% training and 70% natural predisposition.
I was just watching Mares-Darchynian and to be honest with you i dont think Mares would do very good against Donaire. I think Agbeko would be the better fight. Mares when he left Beristain became more offensive but let his defense slip quite a bit. I liked him when he was a mold of JMM. He was a counter puncher which would suit him being that he is so short. A short guy like that should not be brawling with bigger guys. He should be timing them and getting out of the way of their shots.
I always think how much more he could of accomplished had he actually shown more interest in the sport. I remember hearing back in the day (before internet) that he was more interested in chasing chicks instead of training and it showed in the Troy Dorsey fights. He actually gave Whitaker a better fight than Chavez because of his fast reflexes.
That is the guy i remember watching live when i was a kid. My grandpa would take us to fights when we were kids. I remember Paez because of the flips he would do during his entrance.