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Nonito Donaire Sr. at son's fight would be joyous sight
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A smallish man will be the elephant in the room next weekend at the Philippines’ most conspicuous sporting event.
Nonito Donaire Sr. will be noticeable by his presence in -- or more likely his absence from -- the front-row seat that has been reserved for him at the Araneta Coliseum in suburban Manila, where Nonito Donaire Jr. (20-1, 13 knockouts) will be defending his IBF and IBO flyweight titles against Raul Martinez (24-0, 14 knockouts).
It looks like he’s not coming. “He’s been unresponsive,’’ says his daughter-in-law, Rachel Marcial Donaire.
That empty seat won’t go unnoticed in the Philippines, where many will blame the American ways of the fighter and his wife for that empty feeling at the pits of many stomachs.
Senior’s absence from Junior’s corner is newsworthy enough. His dismissal as the champion’s trainer, after he expressed disatisfaction with the son’s focus and his performance against Moruti Mthalane last fall, led to the professional split and a rift that has persisted.
Thus, Dodie Boy Penalosa, the 1980s flyweight champion, will be the chief second in the Donaire corner Saturday (Sunday morning in the Philippines). Gerry Penalosa would be in that role were he and Jonathan Penalosa not in North America preparing for Gerry’s April 25 challenge to WBO super bantamweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez. But the real man in charge will be the champion himself.
Nonito asked his father to serve as cut man, but he demurred. Dr. Ed de la Vega (dentist, journalist, cut man) will step in. Nice as it would have been to have his dad in the corner, the son understood why the subordinate role was unacceptable. But he still said he was dedicating the fight to his father.
The personal and professional aspects of handling “Jun” have been difficult to separate for the older man (he’s barely 50), from the time he brought his family to the Bay Area from the Philippines about 20 years ago. The personal and professional were one and the same until Rachel came into the picture two years ago and became the person, who, well, runs Jun’s life. She characterizes her husband, now 26, as someone who had never even paid an electric bill because his father took care of everything while Jun and older brother Glenn boxed.
While Rachel was wresting control of the personal, Junior was wresting control of the professional, stunning his father when it came to a head so abruptly last November. That’s still the real problem.
"I will never forget everything he has done for since I was a young boy," Donaire told writer Dennis Guillermo last month. Jun and Rachel might convince the father he is still loved, but they still haven’t convinced him they still need him, and perhaps that makes him feel he’s viewed as an old fool with his old-country ties and biases.
Nobody thinks he’s a fool. So much of his father’s knowledge has meshed with his own prodigious boxing intellect that Jun positively mesmerized the illustrious Penalosa brothers as he trained with them all winter. “I believe in him so much,” Gerry told the Manila Standard. “He is fantastic as a fighter.”
He may be only 26, but it seems they look up to him at least as much as he looks up to them, and that he does. “They train really hard like true champions,” Donaire told me last week in a phone conversation, “and I want to measure up.”
There’s enough admiration to go around, and there will be much happiness if Nonito Donaire Sr. is seated at ringside next weekend, his head held high. It would make the son look good and would make the father look truly great.
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