PERHAPS Nonito Donaire Jr. can take a page from the playbook of American Devin Haney when he climbs the ring tonight against Japan’s Naoya Inoue in their world bantamweight unification title fight at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
The clear underdog and fighting on enemy territory, Haney put on a brilliant display of ringmanship last Sunday to earn a clear unanimous decision win over Australian George Kambosos and become the undisputed world lightweight champion in front of 41,129 disappointed hometown fans at the packed Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.
With the victor, Haney, who held the World Boxing Council lightweight strap, wrested the World Boxing Organization, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Association super bantam belts from the erstwhile unbeaten Kambosos, a former sparring partner of Pinoy ring icon Manny Pacquiao.
Donaire, a 1-3 underdog, will face virtually the same conditions when he faces the undefeated Japanese “Monster” in the same arena where they first fought in a memorable action-packed tussle on Nov. 11, 2019.
Using gloves that were not his, Donaire absorbed an 11th round knockdown and lost by unanimous decision to Inoue, who annexed the WBA super bantam and IBF bantam championships.
The Japanese, however, suffered a severe eye injury and a broken nose during the 12-round brawl that Ring Magazine billed as the Fight of the Year in 2019.
Fast forward three years later and Donaire now has a world title he calls his own — the WBC bantamweight crown — that he is putting on the line while hoping to emerge with a win that will move him closer to his dream of becoming the unified champion in the division.
Ten years older at 39 but with the experience and savvy to match, Donaire, who boasts a record of 46 wins, 28 by knockout, against six losses, is confident that things will be different as he enters the Japanese lion’s den the second time around.
He has left nothing to chance, bringing with him two pairs of Everlast boxing gloves, unlike when he had to use borrowed gloves in their initial encounter that he claimed took him off his game.
“I took his (Inoue’s) punches, but this time, we are both getting in there with the puncher’s gloves. In the last fight, my Everlast gloves, through the packing and delivery, arrived messed up. I couldn’t use my gloves, so I had to use his secondary gloves,” the Pinoy fighter recalled in a recent interview with sports streaming service DAZN.
This became an issue yesterday during the pre-fight rules meeting and before the official weigh-in when his wife and manager-trainer Rachel, and promoter Richard Schaefer, Probellum chief, questioned why Inoue’s original set of gloves were not sealed or packed as regulations demanded.
“You f…. me and I will f… you,” Donaire could be heard saying in the YouTube video recorded by the couple during the meeting with officials of the Inoue camp and the Japanese Boxing Commission.
“Our gloves were packed, wrapped and sealed and the pairs we saw from the Inoue camp were not,” noted Mrs. Donaire later, an issue that was immediately addressed when another set of sealed gloves “magically appeared.”
There were no further incidents after that as both fighters successfully met the 118-pound weight limit, with Donaire tipping the scales at 117.8 pounds and Inoue on the dot at 118.
Undefeated in 22 fights, spiked by 19 KOs, Inoue is just as keen in erasing the painful memory of their last bout and re-establish his reputation as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
