Nonito Donaire Hits a Speed Bump…HAUSER

Published

13 years ago

October 26, 2011

Drivers see them all the time. They’re bumps in a roadway (typically painted yellow, three-to-four inches high, six-inches-or-so deep) designed to reduce the speed at which cars are driven. Think of Nonito Donaire as a finely-tuned Porsche with Bob Arum revving up the engine for a test drive toward super-stardom.

Donaire is charismatic in and out of the ring. The WBC-WBO 118-pound champion is on virtually every pound-for-pound list. His record is 27-and-1 with 18 knockouts (the loss came ten years ago in his second pro fight). In the age of Manny Pacquiao, it doesn’t hurt that Nonito’s nickname is The Filipino Flash.

On October 22nd against Omar Narvaez at Madison Square Garden, Donaire hit a speed bump. He didn’t careen off the road, but it slowed him down a bit.

Donaire was born in the Philippines on November 16, 1982; the third of four children. “We were poor,” he says. “We weren’t starving, but lots of times we were hungry. If there was a chicken to split up, it was an occasion.”

Nonito’s parents emigrated to the United States when he was eight years old, bringing his younger brother with them. Nonito and two older siblings stayed behind with their grandparents.

“My grandfather called me ‘midget’ because I was tiny,” Donaire remembers. “As a kid, you take that very seriously. I thought I was nothing. I was an extra mouth to feed; that’s all. I grew up in the streets and got picked on a lot because I was so small. I’d fade away into corners and try not to be noticed. I tried to befriend everyone so I wouldn’t have to fight. No one saw the fighter in me, including me.”

When Nonito was ten, his parents brought him to America.

“I remember very vividly looking out the window of the plane right before it landed in San Francisco,” he recalls. “It was night. I saw all the city lights and wondered, ‘What is that? Fireflies?”

The transition to life in America was hard. Nonito spoke Visayan; not a word of English. When he was eleven, his father put him in an after-school boxing program to keep him off the streets.

“I worked hard at it because I wanted my father to be proud of me,” Nonito says. “I remember walking to the ring for my first fight. I was so scared, I pissed in my pants. I literally pissed in my pants. But the moment I got hit, I wasn’t afraid anymore. That’s what courage is; facing your fears and giving your all, no matter what. When I got hit, it was like another person took over my body. I had to defend myself and the courage came out. I scored three eight-counts and won the decision. After I won, my father smiled and gave me a hug. That was the first time in my life that I felt special.”

Donaire has an exuberant personality and an enthusiasm for life. He loves to talk. His mind darts back and forth. He’s easy to like.

He’s also a gifted impersonator with innumerable accents and dozens of characters in his repertoire: Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver (“You talkin’ to me?”) . . . Mel Gibson in Braveheart (“They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”) . . . Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (“Boards don’t hit back!”) . . . He could do stand-up comedy and be a success.

But Donaire’s most obvious gifts are as a fighter. He’s blessed with great athleticism and explosive punching power. Make a single mistake against him, and your night can be over. He also has a good boxing mind that is currently being honed by trainer Robert Garcia.

“I pay attention to detail in everything I do,” Nonito says. “A friend of mine drinks beer and always moves his glass in a circle. I’ve noticed that. When we sit down together, I know what he’ll do. If I know what my opponent’s habits are, everything in the ring becomes like a slow motion chess match to me.”

Donaire has two signature victories to his credit. The first was a one-punch knockout over then-undefeated Vic Darchinyan in 2007.

“Against Darchinyan, I fought with anger because I felt that he had disrespected me,” Nonito says. “When I knocked him down, I was hoping he’d get up so I could hit him again. After the fight, he said it was a lucky punch that knocked him out; but I don’t believe in lucky punches. When I get hit, it’s because my opponent did something right and I made a mistake. When I hit my opponent, it’s because I did something right and he made a mistake.”

Donaire’s other signature win came against Fernando Montiel in February of this year. Again, one punch made the outcome a foregone conclusion. Montiel rose from a brutal knockdown but was unable to continue.

“The punch I knocked Montiel down with was the best punch I’ve ever thrown,” Nonito says. “The respect I have for him, that he got up and wanted to keep fighting; it’s hard to express the respect I felt.”

Donaire is good, and the consensus is that he’ll get better. “I’m always learning,” he says. “And a lot of what I learned came from studying Bruce Lee. Watching him taught me that, every day, I can become better and go beyond what I already am; that there’s always another lesson to learn; that I have to be dedicated and do things right to succeed in life.”

“I love boxing,” Nonito continues. “I love the beauty of boxing, the purity of boxing. I give my whole being to the sport. Being a great fighter isn’t about belts. To me, greatness is the smile you leave on people’s faces and in their hearts, the way you inspire them. I want to win belts; I want to make a lot of money. But I hope that, a long time from now, people smile when they think about me as a fighter and that I inspire them to want to be the best at whatever they choose to do in their life.”

After Donaire knocked out Montiel, he was on the verge of stardom. Then Golden Boy tried to lure him away from Top Rank. Nonito was told by third parties with their own interests in mind that Top Rank (which had been building his career and still had him under contract) was keeping him under wraps to advance its own economic agenda with Manny Pacquiao. At one point, Donaire signed a contract with Golden Boy. That led to legal action and an ugly war of words.

“Facts are facts,” Top Rank CEO Bob Arum declared. “He’s not a pay per view fighter. Filipinos don’t support him. When we put him on pay-per-view, we did no buys. When he fought Montiel, it was all Mexicans. He has not connected with the Filipinos. I don’t think the Filipino people like him and that is largely because of his wife [who reportedly was advocating for Golden Boy]. She criticizes the way Jinkee [Pacquiao] dresses and she’s all tarted up. Jinkee dresses like a lady.”

That led to a self-righteous rebuttal from Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, who raged, “Nonito Donaire and Rachel Donaire are first-class people. They really don’t deserve this sort of vicious and uncalled for attacks from Bob Arum. Bob Arum may be angry that they left him, but such is life. There is no reason for these idiotic comments. Bob Arum’s true colors came out, and they always will. That’s just the kind of person that he is. If Bob Arum thought that he still had [a binding contract] with Nonito and he was making these comments, then wouldn’t that make him an even bigger idiot? You just don’t say these kinds of negative things. That’s just a low-life who does that; and that’s what Bob Arum really is.”

A contract extension heals all wounds. The war was resolved when Donaire signed a contract that binds him to Top Rank for a minimum of four more years. Top Rank can further extend the contract if certain contingencies occur.

“It went out of control,” Arum said after peace with the Donaire camp had been restored. “I should know with all my experience that it’s self-defeating to carry on battles like this through the media. I apologized to Rachel, which is more than most politicians do when they say something wrong. I apologized sincerely and she accepted my apology. We’re all on the same page now.”

With the hostilities at an end, Arum began planning for the future. “You can’t be a superstar if you have only a regional following,” he noted. “You can have a regional base or an ethnic base. But to be a real superstar, which means that you generate a large number of pay-per-view buys whenever you fight, you have to have a much broader following.”

Toward that end, Top Rank brought Donaire to New York for the east-coast media exposure that would accompany his fighting in The Big Apple.

“Our goal is to make him a superstar,” Arum said during a pre-fight conference call. “We think that Nonito is such a great exciting fighter and such a pleasing personality that, as he rises in weight, he will become a major superstar in the sport.”

“Donaire is telling us that he wants to go up in weight and fight the toughest guys out there,” Top Rank director of public relations Lee Samuels added. “He wants to fight Mikey Garcia. He wants to fight Juanma and Yuriorkis Gamboa. I said to him, ‘These guys are good and they fight back.’ Nonito told me, ‘No problem.’”

But first there was the matter of Donaire defending his belts against Omar Narvaez in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. The good news for boxing fans was that Narvaez was undefeated (35-0-2) and a “champion.” The bad news was that the Argentinean was 36 years old, lacked power (19 knockouts in 37 fights), was moving up in weight, and had won his WBO 114-pound bauble in one of those contests for a vacant title.

Donaire said all the right things in the days leading up to the fight. “Narvaez is a tremendous fighter. He has a great heart. He knows how to win.”

At the final pre-fight press conference, people were throwing around the names of Argentinean fighters like Carlos Monzon and Sergio Martinez. Perhaps the most relevant name from a promotional point of view was that of Carlos Baldomir, who came into Madison Square Garden as a prohibitive underdog against Zab Judah in 2006 and emerged with the WBC welterweight crown.

But the truth of the matter was that Donaire-Narvaez had been put together as a showcase for Nonito with Narvaez as a sacrificial lamb.

The Theater was close to sold out with 4,425 fans in attendance. The fight began with Narvaez fighting cautiously and Donaire biding his time, waiting for his opponent to make a mistake. The fight continued with Narvaez fighting cautiously and Donaire biding his time, waiting for his opponent to make a mistake. And the fight ended with Narvaez fighting cautiously and Donaire biding his time, waiting for his opponent to make a mistake.

In sum, it was like a twelve-round sparring session with few solid punches landed. Narvaez, a clever boxer, was there to survive and spent the entire night in a defensive shell. Each of the judges scored the bout 120-108 in Donaire’s favor. This observer’s scorecard read 118-110.

The encounter didn’t do much to advance Nonito’s ring career, but it didn’t damage it much either. He was in the ring with a fighter who knew how to protect himself. And Donaire already has good highlight-reel footage from his earlier knockouts of Darchinyan and Montiel.

As for the future; Arum proclaims, “We fully intend to make Nonito a pay-per-view attraction. It’s silly to guess how long that will take. It will come when it comes. And it’s silly to compare Nonito with Manny Pacquiao. They’re both Filipino, but Nonito has lived in the United States since he was ten years old. Every fighter is different. Top Rank will promote Nonito as his own person in his own way.”

In other words; the issue isn’t whether Donaire will be “the next Manny Pacquiao.” Pacquiao (like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, and Oscar De La Hoya) is a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. The issue is, “How big can Nonito become in his own right?”

We still don’t know how fast and how far the car can go.

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book (Winks and Daggers: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing) was just published by the University of Arkansas Press.

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Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

Published

2 days ago

March 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

March 7 was an unusually heavy Friday for professional boxing. The show that warranted the most ink was the all-female card in London, a tour-de-force for the super-talented Lauren Price, but there were important fights on other continents.

Brighton

Michael Conlan, who sat out all of 2024 on the heels of being stopped in three of his previous five, returned to the ring in the British seaside resort city of Brighton in a shake-off-the-rust, 8-rounder against Asad Asif Khan, a 31-year-old Indian from Calcutta making his first appearance in a British ring.

Conlan, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist who famously signed with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks, is now 33 years old. Against Khan, he was far from impressive, but did enough to win by a 78-74 score and lock in a match with Spain’s Cristobal Lorente, the European featherweight champion.

Conlan, who improved to 19-3 (9), absorbed a lot of punishment in those three matches that he lost. With his deep amateur background, Michael has a lot of mileage on him and he would have been smart to call it quits after his embarrassingly one-sided defeat to Luis Alberto Lopez. His frayed reflexes speak to something more than ring rust. Heading in, Khan brought a 19-5-1 record but had scored only five wins inside the distance.

Conlan vs Khan was the co-feature. In the main event, Brighton welterweight Harlem Eubank, the cousin of Chris Eubank Jr, improved to 21-0 (9 KOs) with a dominant performance over Conlan’s Belfast homie Tyrone McKenna. Eubank was credited with three knockdowns, all the result of body punches, before referee John Latham had seen enough and pulled the plug at the 2:09 mark of round 10. It was the fourth loss in his last six outings for the 35-year-old McKenna (24-6-1).

Harlem Eubank wants to fight Conor Benn next and says he is willing to wait until after his cousin “wipes Benn out.” Chris Eubank Jr vs Benn is slated for April 26 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The North London facility, which has a retractable roof, is the third-largest soccer stadium in England.

Toronto

Local fan favorite Lucas Bahdi and his stablemate Sara Bailey were the headliners on last night’s card at the Great Canadian Casino Resort in Toronto. The event marked the first incursion of Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions into Canada.

Bahdi, who is from Niagara Falls but trains in Toronto, burst out of obscurity in July of last year in Tampa, Florida, with a spectacular one-punch knockout of heavily-hyped Ashton “H2O” Sylva. His next fight, on the undercard of Jake Paul’s match with Mike Tyson, was less “noisy” and the same could be said of his homecoming fight with Ryan James Racaza, an undefeated (15-0) but obscure southpaw from the Philippines who was making his North American debut.

Bahdi vs Racaza was a technical fight that didn’t warm up until Bahdi produced a knockdown in round seven with a sweeping left hook, a glancing blow that appeared to land behind Racaza’s ear. The Filipino was up in a jiff, looking at the referee as if to say, “this dude just hit me with a rabbit punch.”

The judges had it 99-90, 97-92, and 96-93 for the victorious Bahdi (19-0) who was the subject of a recent profile on these pages.

Sara Bailey, a decorated amateur who competed around the world under her maiden name Sara Haghighat Joo and now holds the WBA light flyweight title, successfully defended that trinket with a lopsided decision over Cristina Navarro (6-3), a 35-year-old Spaniard who “earned” this assignment by winning a 6-round decision over an opponent with a 1-4-3 record. The judges scored the monotonous fight 99-91 across the board for Bailey who improved to 6-0 and then returned to the ring to assist her husband in Lucas Bahdi’s corner.

Also

Twenty-two-year-old super bantamweight Angel Barrientes, a Las Vegas-based Hawaii native, delivered the best performance of the night with a one-sided beatdown of Alexander Castellano whose corner mercifully stopped the contest after the seventh round as the ring doctor stood in a neutral corner chatting with the referee.

The gritty Castellano, who hails from Tonawanda, New York, brought an 11-1-2 record and hadn’t previously been stopped. A glutton for punishment, he appeared to suffer a broken orbital bone. Barrientes improved to 13-1 (8 KOs).

The show was marred by an excessive amount of fluffy gobbledygook by the TV talking heads which slowed down the action and made the promotion almost unwatchable.

Cartago, Costa Rica

Fighting in his hometown, super flyweight David Jimenez scored a lopsided 12-round decision over Nicaragua’s Keyvin Lara. The judges had it 120-108, 119-109, and 116-112.

Jimenez, now 17-1, came to the fore in July of 2022 when he upset Ricardo Sandoval in Los Angeles, winning a well-earned majority decision over a 20/1 favorite riding a 16-fight winning streak. That boosted him into a title fight with the formidable Artem Dalakian who saddled him with his lone defeat.

Jimenez’s victory over Lara was his fifth since that setback. It sets up the Costa Rican for another title fight, this time against Argentina’s Fernando Martinez who acquired the WBA 115-pound title in July with an upset of Kazuto Ioka in Japan. Lara, who unsuccessfully challenged Ioka for a belt in 2016, falls to 32-7-1.

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Price Conquers Jonas on an All-Female Card at Royal Albert Hall

Published

2 days ago

March 7, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Price-Conquers-Jonas-on-an-All-Female-Card-at-Royal-Albert-Hall

Ben Shalom’s BOXXER Promotions was at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall tonight with an all-female card topped by a welterweight unification fight between WBC/IBF belt-holder Natasha Jonas and WBA champion Lauren Price.

Liverpool’s Jonas, who turns 41 in June, has had a sterling career, but Father Time has caught up with her. The 30-year-old Price, an Olympic gold medalist, had faster hands, faster feet, and hit harder. The classy Jonas (16-3-1) acknowledged as much in her post-fight interview: “She beat me to the punch every time.”

The scores were 100-90, 98-92, and 98-93.

In advancing her record to 9-0 (2), Price built a strong case that she is the best fighter to come down the pike from Wales since Joe Calzaghe. As for her next bout, she hopes to fight the winner of the March 29 rematch in Las Vegas between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan. That match, with all of the meaningful welterweight hardware at stake, would be a hot ticket item if potted in Cardiff.

Semi-wind-up

Caroline Dubois staved off a late rally to successfully defend her WBC lightweight title with a majority decision over South Korea’s spunky Bo Mi Re Shin. The judges had it 98-92, 98-93, and 95-95. Although the 95-95 tally by the Korean judge was quite a stretch, Shin performed far better than the odds – Dubois was a consensus 35/1 favorite — portended.

Dubois, a 24-year-old Londoner trained by Shane McGuigan, is the sister of IBF heavyweight title-holder Daniel Dubois. Reportedly 36-3 as an amateur, she advanced her pro record to 11-0-1 (5). Heading in, Shin (18-3-3) had won nine of her previous 10 with the lone setback coming via split decision in a robust fight with Belgium’s Delfine Persoon in Belgium.

Other Bouts of Note

Kariss Artingstall returned to the ring after a 14-month absence and scored a unanimous decision over former amateur rival Raven Chapman. The scores were 98-91, 97-92, 96-93.

The prize for Artingstall, who happens to be Lauren Price’s partner, was the inaugural British female featherweight title and a potential rematch with Skye Nicolson who would relish the chance to avenge her last defeat, a loss by split decision to Attingstall in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics. Nicolson, who was part of tonight’s broadcast team, defends her title later this month in Sydney against Florida’s Tiara Brown.

It was the first 10-rounder for Artingstall (7-0). Chapman (9-2) had an uphill battle after Artingstall decked her in the second round with a straight left hand.

In a mild upset, Jasmina Zopotoczna, a UK-based Pole, won a split decision over Chloe Watson, adding Watson’s European flyweight title to her own regional trinket. One of the judges favored Watson 97-93, but each of his colleagues had it 96-95 for the Pole. Although there was no great furor, the verdict was unpopular.

Zapotoczna, who fought off her back foot, improved to 9-1. It was the first pro loss for Watson who is trained by Ricky Hatton.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 316: Art of the Deal in Boxing and More

Published

4 days ago

March 6, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-316-Art-of-the-Deal-in-Boxing-and-More

So, they want to save boxing?

A group of guys with recent ties to the sport of boxing and bags of money suddenly believe they can save a sport that is older than any other sport since the dawn of mankind.

Boxing is the oldest sport.

When cavemen roamed the planet, you can believe one tribe bet another tribe their guy could whip the other guy. Thus began the sport of boxing. There was no baseball, soccer or horse racing.

Even the invention of the wheel was still a few generations away when men were duking it out with other men for sport.

Throughout history mentions of one man fighting another man without arms are written in the Tales of Ulysses and other literary references.

Boxing will never die. Period.

Here is the reason why.

Boxing requires only two men in their underwear with no weapons and no requirement of classes in jujitsu, kickboxing, wrestling or advance training facilities. You can prepare in your backyard with one heavy bag and a pair of boxing gloves. It’s simple.

MMA, on the other hand, requires money.

Boxing is for the poor. Any kid can walk into a gym and begin training. When they become adults, then they start paying to use the gym.

Don’t let people fool you and tell you “boxing is dying.”

People have been saying those same words since John L. Sullivan in the late 1800s. You can look it up.

The phrase “boxing is dying,” is said by people who want you to pay them money to save it. Kind of sounds like the guy currently sitting in the White House who is going to save America by firing Americans from their jobs and allowing Russia to take over Ukraine.

Don’t believe these people.

Boxing does not need saving.

Why would Dana White, who has stated for decades that MMA is bigger than boxing, though no MMA fighter can equal the purses of a Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Tyson Fury, why is he involved in boxing?

There is big money to be made in boxing, especially with internet gambling sites being allowed all over the world. And boxing is popular worldwide. MMA is not.

More people know who Canelo is than UFC’s Alex Pereira.

I respect the UFC fighters. They put in hard work and battle injuries throughout their careers. But MMA is simply not as big as boxing. The purses of MMA fighters at the top level don’t come close to boxing’s top money earners.

Why did Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz and others quickly switch to boxing when called?

The money in boxing is much bigger.

Follow the money.

NYC

A rumble is planned for Times Square in New York City.

Vatos from Southern California are fighting dudes from Nevada and Brooklyn. Sounds like a script from the Gangs of New York.

Where is Leonardo DiCaprio when you need him?

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) will meet Rollie Romero (16-2, 13 KOs) in a welterweight match set for May 2, on Times Square in mid-Manhattan. This is one of three marquee bouts planned to be streamed on DAZN.

Others matched will be Arnold Barboza (32-0, 11 KOs) versus super lightweight titlist Teofimo Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs), and Devin Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) against Jose Carlos Ramirez (29-2, 18 KOs) in a welterweight contest.

This is the proposed match by The Ring magazine backed by Turki Alalshikh who, along with Golden Boy Promotions and Matchroom Boxing, is sponsoring this fight card.

It was also announced that Alalshikh, TKO Group Holdings, and Sela are forming a promotion company.

TKO owns UFC and WWE.

SoCal Fights

Southern California will be busy with boxing cards this weekend.

This Thursday, March 6, is Golden Boy Promotions with a boxing card featuring Manny Flores (19-1, 15 KOs) versus Jorge Leyva (18-3, 13 KOs) in a super bantamweight match at Fantasy Springs Casino. DAZN will stream the boxing card from Indio, California.

On Saturday, March 8, the Fox Theater in Pomona, California hosts a boxing card featuring super middleweights Ruben Cazales (10-0) vs Adam Diu Abdulhamid (18-16). Also, super featherweights Michael Bracamontes (10-2-1) meets Eugene Lagos (16-9-3) at the historic venue promoted by House of Pain Boxing.

On Saturday March 8, Elite Boxing hosts a boxing card at Salesian High in East Los Angeles featuring East L.A. native Merari Vivar (8-0) against Sarah Click (2-8-1) and several other fights.

On Saturday, March 8, an event hosted by House of Champions features top contenders Joet Gonzalez (26-4) vs Arnold Khegai (22-1-1) in a featherweight main event at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, Calif.

A Big All-Female Card in London

On Friday, March 7, the historic Royal Albert Hall in the Kensington borough of London will host an all-female card with two world title fights including a unification fight in the welterweight division.

Natasha Jonas (16-2-1) and Lauren Price (8-0) meet 10 rounds for the IBF, WBC, and WBA belts.

Jonas, 40, the current WBC and IBF titlist, recently defeated Ivana Habazin and before that edged past Mikaela Mayer in a win that could have gone the other way very easily. She will be facing Price, an Olympic gold medalist and current WBA and IBO titlist.

Price, 30, hails from Wales and has an aggressive pressure style that saw her win a battle between punchers with a third-round knockout of Colombia’s Bexcy Mateus this past December in Liverpool. Before that she defeated the always tough Jessica McCaskill.

In the co-main event, lightweights Caroline Dubois (10-0-1) and Bo Mi Re Shin (18-2-3) meet for the WBC world title.

Me Re Shin, 30, fights out of South Korea and has knockout power. She was one of only two fighters to stop Venezuela’s Ana Maria Lozano who has 38 pro fights. That says something. She lost a split decision to Delfine Persoon in Belgium. That really says something.

Dubois had two competitive fights, first, against Jessica Camara that ended in a technical draw due to a clash of heads. Before that she defeated Maira Moneo. Dubois has very good talent and is still young at 24. Is she ready for Mi Re Shin?

Times Square photo credit: JP Yim

Fights to watch:

Thurs., March 6: DAZN, Manny Flores (19-1) vs. Jorge Leyva (18-3)

Fri., March 7: free on DAZN, Lucas Bahdi (18-0) vs. Ryan James Racaza (15-0)

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