No need for a public vote on where Nonito Donaire Jr. should head after he got brutally dismantled by the magnificent Nicholas Walters of Jamaica in Carson, California over the weekend.
The overwhelming street clamor is for him to get back.
Donaire, 31, did look overripe for the convalescent home after that one-sided bout.
He was however reported to have skipped the customary clinical check-up and headed home, both eyebrows in stitches.
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Donaire will most likely revert to the super bantamweight (122-lb) division where he should be able to rebuild his career and stature.
What was rather unnerving was how several Donaire diehards had wantonly wondered if their fallen hero shouldn’t get a rematch.
Yes he should, this reporter retorted, but only if you wished him killed.
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It’s like this. Walters, whose stock soared with his merciless dominance of Donaire, may have wanted to complete the conquest more methodically. For one, Walters did not jump in early, even as he had bared a plot to try and get Donaire inside four rounds.
Walters worked patiently and decided to drop his killer ax only after Donaire missed with a predictable looping left shot in the final second of the sixth round.
There were Pinoy fans who thought the head blow must’ve felt like being hit senseless by a falling fresh coconut.
But another look at the final defining frame as captured by the official Top Rank photographer depicted the gruesome one-sidedness of the contest.
Donaire appeared like an insignificant insect falling prey to a muscular master swatter.
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While there had been knockouts that seemed executed with surgical precision, the demolition of Donaire was both raw and cold-blooded, as though done with a bludgeon.
This was caused mainly by the disparity in weight and build, not to mention ring know-how, of the combatants.
A young television reporter the other day wondered: “Why did you call the WBA featherweight championship the mismatch of the year?”
Because Donaire was clearly not in Walters’ level.
“Didn’t they both weigh in as equal featherweights?”
Yes, indeed, but it was an altogether different story a day after the fighters were able to rehydrate.
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This reporter had to explain that, while Donaire was practically stuck at only a little over 130 lb, Walters had visibly ballooned into a full lightweight at 135 or might have been pumped up close to a welterweight.
Authorities could claim this is insignificant, altogether forgetting the times when weigh-ins were held in the morning of the championship, not the day before, in order to prevent fatal injuries.
Of course, it was not Walters’ fault that he had held things stoically in check until the final weight test, before reporting for the championship mighty as a human maelstrom that sucked in his hapless insect of an opponent.