DODONG Donaire Sr., the father/trainer of former five-division world champion and newly crowned World Boxing Organization super bantamweight champion Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire, said he was worried that when his son was pinned against the ropes by the bull-strong Cesar Juarez during their title fight on Saturday.
“The guy might hit him with a good punch. He (Juarez) threw a lot of punches (in Rounds 8 and 9) and Nonito might have gone down,” said Donaire Sr.
The elder Donaire recalled that he had “seen a lot of fights when a fighter is winning, but got knocked out by staying on the ropes.”
“It was a good thing that Nonito was really in shape. If not, he could have been knocked out,” the father/trainer said, indicating that in the next training camp, “we have to do more.”
He pointed out that during sparring with bigger fighters in Fidel Navarette and Fred Bowen, “Nonito was able to move and didn’t get caught on the ropes and was able to evade those kind of punches thrown by Juarez. With the accident (when referee Ramon Pena accidentally tripped Donaire in the sixth round), you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
He added: “When he was tripped, Nonito started to slow down, but I give the guy Juarez credit. He is really tough and took all the punches of Nonito.”
The Filipinio Flash was unable to get the leverage to punch as Juarez pushed him against the ropes, negating their game-plan, which was not to stay on the ropes during the offensive of his foe.
He revealed that Nonito was looking for an opening while on the ropes because his foot was bothering him.
“He wanted to take him out with one big punch,” Donaire Sr. said.
The elder Donaire added that his son changed a lot from his previous fights and trained harder than ever before and his counter-punching in the early rounds and the two knockdowns he scored in Round 4 made him think that Juarez “would give up, but he was like a truck. I thought it wouldn’t last six rounds.”
This was the same assessment of Atty. Ed Tolentino and this commentator who did the coverage for ABS-CBN, but the amazing resilience of Juarez, who has never been knocked out before, helped him survive and turn the tide in the middle round after Donaire was hampered by the injury, which saw him hobbling to his corner at the end of Round 6.
Donaire Sr. said that his son had seven stitches on the deep cut on his right eye, adding he didn’t notice what happened because after “Nonito turned around from the corner, I saw blood dripping from the cut which he said was caused by a head-butt,” even as referee Pena cautioned the fighters to “watch your heads.”
Donaire, his wife Rachel and the family will rest and spend some time on the beach before leaving for Manila, where he is expected to receive a hero’s welcome.
The father/trainer said Donaire is likely to stay in the Philippines until February and plans to return to the gym after some two weeks, while he himself would return to his own gym in Oakland, California because one of his fighters, Joebert Alvarez will face McWilliams Arroyo in a 10-round bout for a regional belt in Philadelphia on Dec. 29.