Is Nonito The Next Pacquiao?

With Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao in the White House robbing headlines (albethey about his ill-fitting blazer), some may have forgotten the other Pinoy boy and rising star Nonito Donaire is up for his hardest fight to date, this Saturday night, when he takes on Leonardo Mossiel.

After a disappointing opening for HBO’s Boxing After Dark in 2011, Donaire versus Montiel might have everything that their first fight lacked, namely heart.

Nonito Donaire – rated number five on Ring Magazine’s pound for pound fighter light- put on quite a performance in December against Sodorenko when he dropped him and then followed that up by breaking his nose – that forced the Ukranian to take a knee. Hey does that fistic flair remind you of anyone?

But Fernando Montiel (44-2) is no Sodorenko. You may remember him – ranked number eight on The Ring’s pound-for-pound list – from a fight in Japan last year when he knocked out Hozumi Hasegawa (see my top KOs of 2010). Then again, he’s had his share of losses, most memorably one match he lost to that brutal bean-pole Jhonny Gonzalez. (Watch the end of the fight below, but look out for Montiel’s short-shorts.)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EaZsnOON-M&feature=related

Nearly everyone is predicting a win for Donaire, and I believe they