NONITO DONAIRE is turning to boxing legends before returning from his defeat to Nicholas Walters.
He is already back in training, working out at Roy Jones’ gym in Las Vegas and preparing to return in February or March.
He admits he had started to take the sport for granted ahead of the Walters fight and that he was boxing on “autopilot”.
Now, however, approaching a pivotal 2015, he admits boxing needs to become his sole focus once more.
“I’m going back into it,” he said, from his home in Las Vegas. “I’ve actually watched fights. I haven’t watched fights in a long time, I’ve watched some Roy Jones fights, some Naseem Hamed fights – because I was a big fan of his – and a little bit of Marco Antonio Barrera, Oscar [De La Hoya], [Felix] Trinidad, like I used to and how I got to what I was, because I was watching these guys.
“Ricardo ‘Finito’ Lopez, he was one of my guys. I’m looking back at all of the fights I used to watch. “I realise I got good watching the fights. I’m studying everything and relearning everything.”
He is also going back to basics in the gym and will look towards how he fought as a contender rather than a champion.
“I should rely on my fundamentals,” he admitted. “I rely on speed, I still have the speed I had when I was 25, I’m still fast, but I relied on that and power to end the fight, to give the fans a knockout. I always go out for a knockout. That’s why I’m looking back at how patient Roy was, or how Lopez was or all those guys.”
