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Nonito Donaire Frustrated by Inactivity By Ryan Songalia PhilBoxing.com Fri, 23 May 2008  Nearly a year has passed since Nonito Donaire scored Ring Magazine's Knockout of the Year for '07, earning the flyweight crown and bringing an exciting new angle to the lighter divisions. Instead of engaging with the best of the flyweight bunch, Donaire is at home in San Leandro, CA, working out, waiting for that phone call that never seems to come. "I really can't do nothing about it," says a frustrated Donaire, 19-1 (12 KO). "I'm disappointed because it's been a year since I beat Darchinyan and I've fought only once. I've wanted to do more than fight once." Donaire was slated to face Hussein Hussein in Dubai last month, only to have that fight fail to materialize. Even still, Donaire has no solid understanding of why his second title defense fell out. "My feelings have subsided somewhat because you don't know if the fight is going to fall through or not. I don't want to get into a situation where I train to 100% and the fight doesn't come through. The more you put your feelings into it, the more frustrating it gets. I try not to think about it and train hard." The disappointments have been mounting as Donaire's career remains stagnant while the 115-pound division blossoms into one of the sport's best. Donaire's manager, Cameron Dunkin, points to Donaire's promoter Gary Shaw. "The promoter just hasn't offered us anything. He had the one fight [against Luis Maldonado] and the fight in Dubai wasn't his fight, it was another fight that Gary came across. He asked us to go fight for that other promoter, but the whole show fell apart." Donaire says of his promotional situation, "It's been disappointing, but I guess they're trying and that's what counts." At what point is "trying" no longer enough? "I'm sure that will come to a point," Dunkin says, "we talked about that this morning. Still, you're relying on whoever your promoter is and getting a network date with HBO or Showtime. As you can tell, there's not a lot of 112 pounders or 115 pounders fighting on HBO. Unless they fight on the under card of a PPV show or they're doing business somewhere and do a show down in Mexico where Arce did 18,000 the other night, it's hard to fight. We have a promoter who is trying to get us a date on television." An August 2 date on Showtime had been "mentioned" to Donaire, but that comes with a flipside: It would be as the supporting fight to Vic Darchinyan's title opportunity against IBF super-flyweight titlist Dmitri Kirilov. "Gary said this morning that he's not offering it to us yet," commented Dunkin. "He hasn't gotten Showtime to take this yet. He's said that he's going to try, but he has not offered the fight. It's just been mentioned and he said this morning that we would be the opening bout for sure." A call to Gary Shaw's New Jersey office did not produce a comment. Through everything, Donaire tries to maintain a positive attitude. "I still have that hunger but I'm like 'Ahh man.' I don't want to get caught up in it because it might get canceled. But the hunger is still there, it's never gonna leave me. I still want to unify the belts and fight the best. If there is none there I want to go up to 115 pounds and make it happen there." Donaire claims that he can still make the weight of 112 pounds, but that it's been no picnic. "It's been hard going up and down in weight. It's been getting harder because the fights go on, they go off. It's been hard on my body. I don't think it's a problem if I have enough time." With all of the other flyweight titlists competing overseas, a unification seems highly doubtful. Super-flyweight hosts exciting fighters like Jorge Arce, Alexander Munoz and Fernando Montiel, all competent world class talents who would provide Donaire with career-making rivalries. The one name that stands out amongst them is Cristian Mijares, who unified the WBC/WBA super-flyweight belts this past weekend. Donaire makes no secret of his desire to fight him. "I think I can outspeed Mijares. I think I can out-power him, I'm smarter than him. I can use strategy to make that fight go my way. I think I'm a lot faster than him. Overall I'm very confident that I can take him out or beat him on points. In speed he has nothing compared to mine." "Oh, he can beat Mijares," agrees Dunkin. "But this guy is unifying the title and is active, we aren't." For now, all Donaire can do is remain patient and keep an eye on the activity booming around him, waiting. Any questions or comments? Send them to me at mc_rson@yahoo.com. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ryan Songalia.  |
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