NONITO Donaire will become part of boxing’s biggest fight of the year as he seeks to win another world title in the undercard of the Errol Spence-Terrence Crawford undisputed world welterweight championship match next week.
Nonito Donaire vs Alejandro Santiago
The bid of the 40-year-old Filipino for the WBC bantamweight crown against Alejandro Santiago had to be moved a good two weeks from its original date following the last-minute decision to include it in the Crawford-Spence unification bout.
It was originally set July 15 at the Chelsea Ballroom at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas.
But now, it’s expected to be reached by a bigger worldwide audience as a support card to the highly anticipated Crawford-Spence title match.
The change in the fight schedule came just a few days before the official weigh-in for Donaire’s fight against Santiago.
Rachel Donaire, who is also the manager of the four-division world champion, discussed about the matter to the team when the opportunity came about, and they were one in agreement that being part of the Spence-Crawford bout is certainly a much bigger exposure.
Donaire is in Las Vegas for a couple of weeks now, although he’s been based in the Sin City for a few years already. He initially set up training camp in Cebu where he holed up at the Omega boxing gym.
It will be the first time Donaire is going to fight again following his devastating second round TKO at the hands of former tormentor Naoya Inoue of Japan in June of last year.
Inoue, the former undisputed bantamweight champion of the world, decided to move up in weight and gave up his four championship belts, paving the way for Donaire and Santiago to dispute the WBC version of the 118lbs division.
At 40, the ‘Filipino Flash’ will try to become the oldest fighter to win the crown as he tries to surpass the present record he himself set at 38 years old when he wrested the WBC title from Nordine Oubaali following a fourth round stoppage in May of 2021.
Donaire, a first round ballot Hall of Famer, currently holds a 42-7 record (28 KOs)
Santiago, 27, is no stranger to world title fights, though.
The 5-foot-2 Mexican held Filipino Jerwin Ancajas to a draw in 2018 in a failed bid to win the IBF super-flyweight crown.
He carries a 27-3-5 record (14 KOs).
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