By Chris Williams: Joel Diaz, the trainer for Tim Bradley, thinks the featherweight division is too tough for former four division world champion Nonito Donaire (33-3, 21 KOs) after watching him get taken apart by World Boxing Association (WBA) World featherweight Nicholas Walters (25-0, 21 KOs) last night in 6 rounds at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Donaire, 31, was knocked down twice in the fight, and stopped in the 6th after he was dropped by a right hand from the stronger Walters.
Donaire has won world titles at flyweight, bantamweight, super bantamweight and featherweight. Donaire obviously bit off more than he could chew in beating Simpiwe Vetyeka by a 5th round technical decision last May to capture the WBA Super World featherweight title. That was a controversial victory where Donaire said he couldn’t see out of his cut left eye after the 4th round, and that enabled it to go to the scorecards.
It wasn’t the ideal way for a fighter to capture a world title, because Donaire didn’t prove anything with the fight. Had the fight gone longer the chances are that Vetyeka would have beaten Donaire because he was walking him down in the same way Walters was doing last night.
“The division was a little bit too tough for Donaire,” said Diaz. “You could see the difference in the power of Walters. Even his jab was solid. He [Walters] had no respect for him even from the beginning, and he was already taking it to him. He reeled him in. He was really smart in reeling him in and catching him with the right punch,” Diaz said.
Donaire is going to need to make a decision about where he can go from here. He can retire, stay at featherweight, or move back down to one of the lower weights. The super bantamweight division has improved to the point where I doubt that Donaire could win a world title in that weight class.
As flabby as Donaire looked last night, he could easily lose 8 pounds of fat and drop down to bantamweight at 118 pounds. Donaire weighed only 131 pounds when he entered the ring last night against Walters, and that’s only 13 pounds over the bantamweight limit.
If Donaire took off some flab, he could fight at bantamweight and probably do well in that division. To be sure, there aren’t too many stars in that weight class, but at least Donaire could have a good chance of picking up a strap and holding it for a while.
Donaire had this to say on his twitter last night after his loss to Walters:
”Congratulations to Walters! He deserves everything. I have no regrets. I can honestly say I trained my best and I made a lot of sacrifices this camp. I’m honored I lost to him in the fight we had. I hit him with everything I had and he just kept coming. Thanks to all my friends family and fan who believed in me and still believe in me. I love u all. God bless.
If Donaire stays at featherweight then it’s only a matter of time before he gets knocked out again.
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