By Matt Muranaka: Even though Nonito Donaire (26-1,18Ko’s) has only had two big fights in his career, he has yet to disappoint. Coming out of Hayward California, and training in the nearby city of San Jose California, Donaire has been a hidden boxing gem in the Bay Area. After the events that unfolded on February 19, many writers/fans have all been hailing the “Filipino Flash” as their new mega star. I have been coming across many articles that have false information, or one sided information, so I am attempting to get the record straight.

Donaire is from Northern California, not Southern California. He is from the Philippians, but came over when he was 10 to settle in the San Leandro/Hayward area. And unlike some writers that claim that Fernando Montiel had problems with his weight before the fight with Donaire, Donaire had to skip two meals before the weigh in and run in the Mandalay Bay parking lot for 30 minutes just so he could make the weight before the Montiel fight. An hour before the weigh in at 2:00 Donaire was a 1/2 pound over the limit. And the weigh in was delayed around 20 minutes while Donaire ran off the 8 ounces.

In both of Donaire’s mega bouts, which both came to the same dramatic bone crushing ending coming off the same punch. And Donaire jumping up and down in a neutral corner, while his opponent is left being held up by their trainers trying to regain basic human functions. In 2007 Gary Shaw (then Donaire’s promoter) was thought to be feeding him to this new “raging bull” Vic Darchinyan(35-3,27Ko’s). Darchinyan already beat what everyone thought as, the better Donaire brother. Nonito Donaires older brother Glenn Donaire by a technical decision and at that broke his jaw during the fight. In 2011, we all know what was to come of that fight, Nonito hitting Darchinyan with left hands hard during the 3rd and later in the 5th round to end the fight. Gary Shaw was so taken back by this unexpected ending that he tried to punish Donaire by trying to keep him out of action and against lower end competition.

Beating Darchinyan who had never been down before the Donaire fight, was a underdogs dream, a 7 to 1 at that. But almost 4 years later and with a new promoter (Top Rank), people who never really watched Donaire’s career started to already count him out versus Fernando Montiel. In all of the articles stating how Donaire was going to be “rudely awakened” by Montiel the man that went to Japan and back again after tko’ing Hasegawa in impressive action, were counting out everything that Donaire had accomplished in the sport. They were only focusing on Montiel’s knockout of the “Pride of Japan” fighter. But even after Donaire soundly beat another great fighter, he is quickly being written off by the same haters.

My question is how can you just write off Donaire so quickly? Yes he was the betting favorite 2.5 to 1, but while Donaire and Montiel were saying in interviews how they were both going after knockouts, many analysts and boxing commentators where putting heavy emphasis that we were going to see another war on the night of February 19th. The 11 year anniversary war of Morales vs Barrera. Just last week many sites were flooded with how Donaire was going to fail, and how he was a nobody. Which is moronic being that he was already on many pound for pound lists (The Ring, Espn, etc), above Montiel… Less than a week has passed and some have already written off the event that Donaire showed. Some articles are already declaring that Donaire’s speed and power wont be enough to get past Gamboa and Lopez. How do you have the tenacity to compare a fighter that fought at 118 to a 126 lbs fighter (Lopez and Gamboa). I am not saying that Donaire would beat either of them, but how can you take one fight and put that same fighter and skip a whole weight division to compare him to another fighter, when he hasn’t even fought at super bantamweight or featherweight for that matter. If Donaire was to be a “sacrificial lamb” last week and 4 years ago, to have survived unscathed and his opponent sitting out for at least 3 months due to punishment he endured. That tells you something about this man…. don’t count him out.

I have grown up in the Bay Area all my life, and have watched boxing ever since i can remember. In the upcoming years I believe that Nonito Donaire style, will not be like Manny Pacquiao’s boxer/puncher/brawler. I have watched several interviews on how he thinks in the ring and have seen how he breaks down his fights. He is a young counter puncher/technician when he steps into the ring of truth. He watches his opponent from the legs to the waist to the neck, never the head. He memorizes where the head is going to be, where the arms will be. Hopefully Donaire can change the mind of the hardcore boxing fans that say that Pacquaio’s style lacks finesse, watch Nonito Donaire.

Hopefully Donaire can get his career on track this time after this big win, and not have a career stall like after the Darchinyan fight. At a career high pay day of just $350,000 (around there) we all want to see more of him, win or lose. We in the Bay Area would love to see Andre Ward and Nonito Donaire on the same card at Oracle Arena in the near future, make it happen SHO or HBO!…….I can always wish