By Nick Giongco
Manila, Philippines – Somebody should have warned Wilfredo Vazquez of Puerto Rico about disrespecting Nonito Donaire.
Each time an opponent did that to Donaire, the Filipino-American reacted violently in the ring, turning a trash-talking Australian-Armenian foe scrambling like a toddler learning how to walk and a Mexican loudmouth appearing as if he was re-enacting a ghastly scene from a horror movie.
Donaire gets the opportunity to add Vazquez to his growing list of knockout victims when they collide Saturday night (Sunday in Manila) for the vacant World Boxing Organization (WBO) super-bantamweight crown at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, United States.
Cameron Dunkin, Donaire’s American manager, told the online edition of The Ring magazine that it was a bad idea for Vazquez to get his fighter angry.
“When you make Nonito Donaire mad, he doesn’t go crazy. He just gets even,” said Dunkin, pointing to the fate suffered by Vic Darchinyan and Fernando Montiel after they bad-mouthed the 28-year-old California-based Donaire.
Dunkin said Darchinyan, who was knocked out with just one Donaire punch years ago, and Montiel, who looked as if he was having a violent seizure after taking a hard blow to the side of his head, “treated him horribly before they fought.”
In the days leading to the big fight, the camps of Donaire and Vazquez figured in a heated exchange on Twitter and it nearly reached boiling point when the two boxers faced each other during the staredown during the press conference.
During the customary face-off, Vazquez flipped Donaire’s baseball cap and Donaire responded quickly by taking off his foe’s hat, compelling the two to badmouth each other and forcing cooler heads to intervene and separate them.
During Friday’s official weighin, Donaire tipped the scales at 121.6 pounds, while Vazquez came in at the division limit of 122 pounds.
Rafael Ramos, who was born in Puerto Rico, will referee the Donaire-Vazquez match. The three judges are all from the US. They are Levi Martinez, Donald Trella, and Ruben Garcia.
Donaire parades a 27-1-0 win-loss- draw record with 18 knockouts, while Vazquez totes a 21-1-1 mark, also with 18 knockouts in the slugfest that will feature the battle for the World Boxing Council (WBC) middleweight title between Mexicans Julio Cesar Chavez and Marco Antonio Rubio.
