Nonito Donaire: Hyped as hell.

I recently watched some Donaire fights and he's easily one of the top 5 most overrated fighters in boxing. Ever since that KO win over Darchinyan people love to talk about his amazing "talent" and rarely mention his many flaws. Amsterdam has made a few threads today about overrated fighters and their nuthuggers, but I don't think he talks negatively about Donaire enough and same goes for everyone else. Maybe it's because people have only seen the Darchinyan match and have not seen his other Showtime appearances?

The fight with Harutyunyan showed all of his flaws so clearly that even PacDBest would be able to see them. Donaire's balance sucks. He's constantly out of position after missing right hands and his in-out style will only look good against 2nd rate fighters, because any solid B+ level counter puncher would own him. Every time Donaire gets hit flush or countered, he pulls back with his hands down and runs. Against someone who throws quick, accurate combinations he would not know what to do. He relies on his opponents not having a very good defense and being slower than him. If they have both, he's completely screwed. His reflexes are also far from great since he gets hit (especially pulling out) way too much and he doesn't fight relaxed the way elite reflex-boxers do.

Donaire often looks a bit too anxious when he fights and his stamina is questionable. In the Harutyunyan fight he was looking a little tired and a lot more sloppy against a C level at best fighter in the later rounds and he even lost the final two. His punches are light.. don't let his last few KO wins make you think they're not. His chin is very questionable because of the way he reacts to getting hit flush. Also, his inside game sucks and he just relies on his speed more than anything inside, which won't work well for him against the top flyweights.

I know this Mijares-Donaire poll will be close, but a fight between them wouldn't be close at all. It would be a near shutout loss for Nonito. Since there's nobody that can outbox him around his weight, Mijares only has trouble against solid chinned fighters who always stay in the pocket with him after getting hit and constantly make him fight toe to toe. Donaire doesn't fit into that at all. Mijares can do anything Donaire does, but a lot better while also looking a lot more comfortable, confident, and relaxed. It's crazy that people give Donaire a ton more credit for knocking out an extremely limited fighter in Vic than they give Mijares in owning a very limited (but less limited than Vic) fighter in Arce for 12 full rounds. I guess KO's will always create more hype than shutouts. Mijares would control this fight and his jab would land easily. He would counter the hell out of Donaire every time he misses and he would follow up with 3-4 punch combinations that Donaire has never seen before. To put it simply, Nonito would look silly and uncomfortable. He doesn't strike me as a fighter that can't be broken down mentally on a tough night either. Donaire wouldn't be able to keep up with Mijares skillwise and he wouldn't be able to keep up with his great pace either. He wouldn't have a chance in this fight, but still.. I think at least 40% of the forum will pick him over Mijares.

90% of the forum will probably disagree with me on this, but I would pick Arce over Donaire as well. I recognize Arce's limitations/vulnerabilities and this is a fight that Donaire does have a chance in, but I see him losing this also. Arce's punch output, mental strength, physical strength, insane 1 punch power, relentlessness, timing, and stamina would be too much for Donaire. Nonito would blow himself out in the first half of the fight landing a lot of punches on Arce (without much of an effect on him) and be gassed in the later rounds, then probably get stopped. It's not even out of the question that Donaire gets caught and knocked out by Arce early on in this fight. He's not hard to hit and his chin is dentable. To win, Donaire would need to fight extremely safe and essentially run for most of the round while landing nice looking counter shots and jabs in the process. But he likely wouldn't do that, because he would see early on how easy it is to land on Arce and think that just because he's connecting more shots, Arce is more tired than him. Arce's pressure, although sloppy, would wear him down and make Donaire find himself in a very tough situation when he gets gassed and very sloppy himself in the second half of the fight. Arce would start landing punches more often and I think it would lead to a stoppage win or a decision win if Donaire chose to run instead of retaliate.

The main point is this though: Donaire does not deserve the hype he gets. Boxing experts and writers have labeled him as a future star ever since his win over Darchinyan and they think he has elite level talent. Watch his fights.. he clearly doesn't.

 

He's improved, but not much and his defense is still ****. His hands down jump in and out reflexive defense is not on the elite level.. it looks successful against B levels but he will struggle greatly when he meets a real top flyweight. He's only a year younger than Mijares, who has shown much greater boxing ability, clear improvement, and maturity as a fighter. It shouldn't be hard to pick the winner if you watch these two fight. Did you watch any Donaire fight other than the Vic one?

That's what a KO win over an undefeated "dangerous" fighter does to someone's hype. People are more impressed with a one-shot KO win than a 12 round destruction simply because they can make one into a gif and replay it a thousand times.

So far my guess that 40% of the posters would pick Donaire over Mijares is correct. One funny thing to note is that if Arce didn't get made to look like **** against Mijares, people would be giving him a much better chance over Nonito.

 

See what I mean.. He got 1 impressive KO win over someone with an unproven chin and now he's suddenly a "big puncher".

 

Yes, that's what I'm saying. And Arce is a more dangerous fighter than Darchinyan. Outclassing and destroying a solid B level iron chinned fighter for 12 rounds is more impressive to me than getting an early KO against a shaky chinned B level fighter. But all of this doesn't matter. Just watch Mijares and Donaire fights side by side and if you can't tell who's the more skilled, more mature fighter then you're blind.

I said that to point out that if Mijares didn't make Arce look like a joke, a lot more people would be picking him to beat Donaire. As limited as he is, Arce is a solid fighter with great power/chin/stamina and a threat to anyone at flyweight, but Mijares made him look so bad that nobody takes him seriously anymore. After Arce was destroyed by Mijares last year, it wasn't that big of a deal on this forum. When Donaire KO'd Darchinyan it was a huge deal and apparently it still is. Hopefully if Gorres beats Vic (which he has a very good chance of doing), people will start to see that Donaire's best win was against an extremely limited fighter.