What's Wrong with Nonito Donaire, and Will It Be Fixed?

What’s wrong with Nonito Donaire?

The Filipino Flash defends his WBA Featherweight Championship against undefeated power puncher Nicholas “Axe Man” Walters on Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, and he’s running out of chances to right his ship.

And there doesn’t seem to be any easy fixes in sight.

That’s what happens when a fighter’s head just isn’t in the game anymore.

Such is life in the fast lane of boxing, where things can change in one night.

Donaire is just about two years removed from a banner 2012 campaign that saw him impressively defeat four current or former world champions, earning him Fighter of the Year honors from the Boxing Writers Association of America, The Ring Magazine and ESPN.com.

He took the bullet train up the pound-for-pound ranks, drawing favorable comparisons to his compatriot Manny Pacquiao and even being mentioned as his possible successor.

Eric Gay/Associated Press

But Donaire hasn’t been the same fighter since being dominated—ludicrously close official scorecards be damned, it was not a close fight—by Guillermo Rigondeaux in a super bantamweight unification bout last year in New York City.

The fight wasn’t damaging, at least in a physical sense, but it seemed to take a few miles of zip off the Filipino’s fastball.

For a fighter accustomed to being faster, stronger and smarter than all his previous opponents, Donaire looked befuddled by Rigo’s defensive and counter-punching mastery.

It shook his confidence, and that’s something many fighters find extremely difficult to get back once it’s gone.

Donaire returned from the Rigondeaux loss in what was supposed to be a safe fight with Vic Darchinyan last November on HBO. But it turned into a roller-coaster ride he was lucky to survive without being bucked from the car.

The awkward Armenian had been on something of a roll, but Donaire had drilled him—pretty much literally—six years earlier in a fight that launched his big-time boxing career.

Darchinyan is a tough customer, for sure, but how many people expected him to be ahead on the scorecards late in the fight, requiring Donaire to catch him for a come-from-behind knockout victory?

In the ring, Donaire was reluctant to let his hands go. His strength was always an ability to use a foe’s aggression against them, but he seemed nervous whenever Darchinyan would come in and let his hands go.

His body language told the story of a fighter who just doesn’t believe in himself anymore, and knockout victory aside, you’d have to count it as one of his more disappointing performances.

And that just set the table for what was to come next.

Donaire defeated Simpiwe Vetyeka to capture a featherweight championship, but the fight was marred with every sort of controversy you can imagine.

From poor officiating—Luis Pabon allowed Donaire to virtually call time out a few times when he got caught with a shot—to the Filipino basically asking, and getting, out of the fight just in time to get a technical decision, everything about the bout stunk.

Vetyeka, who was behind but giving Donaire all he could handle, has every right to feel that things weren’t on the up and up. He got jobbed, and the image of Donaire seeming to ask out of a difficult fight only supports the contention that he doesn’t want it anymore.

He won a world title, yes, but there’s no way you could credit him for the performance.

Scott Christ of Bad Left Hook described the whole turn of events as “questionable at best, flat-out corrupt at worst,” and if you watched the fight, it’s hard to come to any other logical conclusion.

Donaire will put that title on the line Saturday against Walters—the holder of the meaningless “regular” WBA title as opposed to the Filipino’s “super” title—in a fight that could well define the rest of his career.

Walters has huge punching power.

He obliterated Darchinyan in his last bout, much more impressively than Donaire, and lacks none of the confidence that has eluded his foe of late.

Kin Cheung/Associated Press

This is a dangerous fight, and it’s one in which Donaire needs to at least display some of his old form, or else he could get run down by a younger, stronger and more physical fighter.

It’s possible that Top Rank—who promotes both Donaire and Walters—is taking a calculated risk with both men here.

A Donaire victory would certainly reinvigorate his star to a certain degree, and it would add some legitimacy to the 126-pound title he carries around with him.

A Walters win would put him on the path to stardom.

It's a win-win situation for the company.

Donaire remains a prominent name in the lower-weight divisions, even if he’s faded a bit and fallen on some tough times.

So how likely is it that the Filipino Flash regains some of his old form?

You never want to say never, and Walters is definitely the type of fighter who Donaire, at his best, could probably have handled.

But his best would seem to be in the rear-view mirror.

He's pushing 32 years old—less than a month after the fight—and he’s at the point where physical decline could begin to become a factor. 

It’s possible he’ll show flashes of his old self on Saturday night, Walters can be a bit unrefined at times, but hoping for a sudden renaissance seems like a fool’s errand.

Those days are gone, likely forever.

Whether or not his late-2014 version has enough to hold off Walters remains an open question, but it's not what it once was.