By Chris Williams: When you look at poor Nonito Donaire (25-1, 17 KO’s), all you can think of is how truly sheltered the guy has been for most of his career. It’s like having a pet that you never let out of the yard to see the world. Donaire has been almost totally sheltered by his promoter Bob Arum since 2007. Donaire is going into the toughest fight of his career against WBC/WBO bantamweight champion Fernando Montiel (44-2-2, 34 KO’s)pn February 19th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas. Nevada.
Donaire has been getting put in with weak guys like Manuel Vargas, Hernan Marquez, Raul Martinez, Luis Maldonado, Moruit Mthalance and Wladimir Sidorenko. None of those fighters have been good enough to give Donaire much of a fight. It’s like Donaire has been put in with a bunch of sparring partners. In contrast, Montiel has taken on the best, destroying WBO bantamweight champion Hozumi Hasegawa in a 4th round stoppage last year in April. Hasegawa has a fighting style very similar to Donaire. And Montiel destroyed Hasegawa.
I think a lot of the hype about Donaire is simply that – hype. Donaire has gotten a whole career worth of hype based on one win, his victory over Vic Darchinyan in 2007. While I think that was a great victory, that’s all that Donaire has done. There hasn’t been any followup to that win by putting him against equally good fighters to test if it was just a fluke win or if this was an indication of how good he really was. When Doniare was finally put in with a good fighter in Rafael Concepcion in August 2009, Donaire was battered and bruised by Concepcion, and literally had to run for his life to keep from getting knocked out in that fight. That was Donaire’s best opponent since the Darchinyan fight and Donaire failed to impress. I scored the fight a draw. Since then, it’s been back to soft competition for Donaire. In a side note, Montiel turned around and fought the same Concepcion and easily destroyed him in a 3rd round knockout win in July 2010.
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