By Chris Williams: WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) explained after his final press conference with WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) why he decided to lock eyes on him and not look away for the longest of times.
Donaire said he was trying to dominate Rigondeaux. In other words, to intimidate him so that Donaire could get an edge, any kind of edge before their fight this Saturday night at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, New York.
Donaire said on his twitter: “I wasn’t going to look away. I wanted to show the dominance.”
I honestly don’t know how you dominate someone by staring them down. Boxing is a lot more than just staring a guy down and figuring you’ve gained an advantage from that. Intimidation is a primitive trick that a lot of fighters use because they lack the self confidence in their own boxing skills that they have to resort to try and scare their opponent by staring at them in the eyes forever.
A lot of fighters won’t even bother playing the eye contact game, seeing it as a creepy thing that accomplishes nothing and only makes it difficult to be friendly after the fight. It alienates the fighters and it’s embarrassing afterwards, especially for the fighter that uses it and loses the fight.
The way I see it is if Donaire is truly confident in his own skills then why would he need to try and stare down his opponent to try and dominate him. Isn’t Donaire confident enough in his own skills that he can beat him athletically in the ring instead of trying to resort to primitive intimidation techniques to get an edge? If Donaire isn’t good enough to win then why play the intimidation game?
I see fighters that attempt to intimidate others as being afraid and needing to try and scare their opponents in order to try and win the fight before it’s even started. It’s kind of like a dog that barks but who actually is doing it without wanting to fight.
Interestingly enough, it was Donaire that broke the stare down with Rigondeaux by pulling away first and Donaire looked unsettled by the experience, whereas Rigondeaux was calm and cool.
I noticed that Donaire was breathing heavily the whole time he was staring Rigondeaux down and I was worried that he might be in danger of hyperventilating. Someone needed to step in and break them apart because it wouldn’t have been good had Donaire passed out on the stage from breathing too hard.
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