Future HOFer Donaire goes for yet another bantamweight title
40-year-old 'Filipino Flash' faces Santiago on Spence-Crawford undercard with two age-related records on his mind
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LAS VEGAS — Reminded that it was 16 years ago this month that he landed his money-maker left hook to knock out Vic Darchinyan to win the IBF flyweight title, Nonito Donaire can’t help but laugh.
“You’re making me remember all this stuff! It feels like it was just yesterday,” Donaire told Fight Freaks Unite. “I remember just being this hungry kid and I all I wanted was to get this title no matter what. In my head it was like, ‘Break my arm, break my leg, I’m still going to try to fight you to death.’ It was just that mentality that no matter what I wasn’t going to quit.”
All these years later Donaire is no longer that hungry kid going after his first title. He is one of boxing’s elder statesmen, but still hungry even with a Hall of Fame election a lock as one of the best smaller-weight fighters in history.
Donaire has won world titles in four divisions — flyweight, bantamweight (unified), junior featherweight (unified) and featherweight — has been a consensus fighter of the year, scored a knockout of the year, participated in a fight of the year and faced who’s who of the divisions he has boxed in. But, at age 40, “The Filipino Flash” isn’t done yet.
In what will be his 50th fight, with the first round representing the 300th of his career, Donaire will square off with Alexandro Santiago for the vacant WBC bantamweight title on the Errol Spence Jr.-Terence Crawford undercard on Saturday (Showtime PPV and PPV.com, 8 p.m. ET, $84.99) at T-Mobile Arena in bout originally scheduled for July 15 but moved when injuries disrupted the original PPV lineup.
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