Donaire: I still want to fight

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Nonito Donaire (left) - Nicholas Walters (right)

Nonito Donaire - Nicholas WaltersAfter his fight with Nicholas Walters, many felt it might have been the end for Nonito Donaire. But according to the boxer, he still has the passion for boxing.

“I still want to do this,” Donaire told Boxing News Online. “But I was torn between the new things 
I should be doing [in training] and the old things because I was fighting bigger guys. 
I needed to let my body have more time to prepare. For Walters, I had six weeks’ notice. For other fights, I’ve had about eight weeks.”

Donaire felt that as an athlete, he needs to be focused on training more.

“Fighters should be training all year round, like regular athletes. I wasn’t doing that at all. I was going out, doing photography, doing this, doing that, and it was crazy because 
I managed to get as far as I did without the proper focus or without giving it 100 per cent. This time, in 2015, I’m giving it all I’ve got. That means I’ve got to train my body physically, whether I have a fight or not, and to be mentally prepared, which is to watch fights which I never did – and to eat healthy.”

And now more than ever he feels his relationship with his dad and trainer, Nonito Donaire, Sr. is more vital than ever.

“With my dad, I’ve just never given him a chance because since we got together I never really listened. Even with Robert [Garcia], 
I didn’t really listen, I just kind of did the things that I do. That’s why I have told my dad, ‘Now, when I come back to training camp, I want you to guide me, give me a mission every round, like throw all jabs for a round, or throw jab-hook,’ whatever it may be so I can learn the skills all over. It feels like I don’t have the skills, and I want to bring the skills back. 
If I listened to what he said in the third round [of the Walters fight] which was to box and be smart, we might have had a different outcome – but that’s a different story. That’s why I want to give my dad a chance; it’s not fair because my performance has not been really good, but that’s because I didn’t give him a chance by not listening.”