By Gerardo Granados: Will
Next March 28 at Pasay City, Metro Manila at Philippines the once awarded fighter of the year Filipino Flash Nonito Donaire W33(21)-L3-D0 will fight against William Prado W22(15)-L4-D1. This is his comeback fight after losing his WBA feather belt and it is no surprise to see him engage a low risk opponent to build back his confidence but what will happen after this tune up fight?
Will Donaire challenge the super bantamweight Champion of the World Guillermo Chacal Rigondeaux or will he play it safe avoiding to end up badly beaten? Logic tells that Donaire won’t come close to Rigondeaux any time soon but the pride of a hurt lion can force him to take big risks.
A great boxer must be able to deal with a bigger and stronger opponent by using his overall boxing skills and not just by relying on his physical attributes to bully smaller fighters. Once Nonito relinquished to prove his worth at the featherweight division it was obvious that he needed a physical edge over fellow division contenders to feel comfortable at that weight, and as the reader was able to witness the Axe Men Nicholas Walters did an easy job knocking him out of the featherweight division so it might have been a good call to move back down to super bantam.
I wonder if Donaire will play it safe on 2015 and engage low risk opponents or will he try to regain the status as the best super bantam in the world, to do so he must defeat the division Champion Guillermo Rigondeaux. Perhaps instead Nonito will pick any of the belt holders, be it WBC Leo Santacruz, WBA regular belt holder Scott Quigg or IBF Carl Frampton whom also are avoiding the challenge to defeat an exquisite boxer to prove to be the best.
It seems like Donaire is no longer on his peak and his speed and reflexes are starting to decline, his big left will never leave him but he no longer can rely on a physical edge to defeat his opponents even less start making excuses about how hard it is to make the super bantamweight limit. Nonito must improve his overall boxing skills if he is going to excel at the super bantam division. At 32 years of age and 14 as a prize fighter he is no longer a young lion and he must take advantage of the ring experience he has acquired thru all this years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDeJJX_6Y0
A friend of mine asked if Prado would trouble Donaire so I responded to him that on his next bout Nonito must win without any trouble and look great, if not then retirement would be a good option. Then my friend asked if Donaire would excel once again at the super bantamweight division, I told him that either Nonito excels by taking big fights or he would just hide at 122 pounds avoiding losing to any dangerous contender.
I believe Donaire can still excel at super bantam if first he fixes his mindset. But, do the readers think Donaire will excel or just hide?
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