The past year and a half have not been easy for Nonito Donaire. The postponements and cancellations of his scheduled bouts prolonged his layoff even as he looked to bounce back from his loss to Naoya Inoue.
Luckily for him, he had a partner who stayed beside him through thick and thin and made him realize that everything happened for a reason.
That reason? A well-prepared Donaire scored a knockout victory versus Nordine Oubaali last month and reclaimed the World Boxing Council bantamweight title. In doing so, he re-set his own record as the division's oldest world champion.
"I'm very positive as a person. I try my best to look at the good stuff in life so I feel like the postponements gave me more time to study my opponent and work on the things I needed to work on," he explained. "It was a blessing in disguise. We took every moment to get the proper strategy and the proper mental health and just be physically ready for the fight."
For keeping his eyes on the prize, "The Filipino Flash" gladly shared that wife Rachel would be receiving her own belt.
"My wife will be the first female who will be presented with a WBC belt for trainer," he shared. "She's done a great job as a mom, as a wife, as a manager, as a strength and conditioning coach, and now, as a head coach in my corner. She's amazing and the best partner I could ever wish for."
Donaire knew full well the tall task he faced going against the erstwhile undefeated Oubaali. With the help of his wife who has long been involved in the fight game, however, he came up with the perfect strategy.
"He could have been very difficult for me if I was the same type of fighter I was previous to that fight. Before, I was just there to fight. There was no strategy," he admitted. "For this fight, we had the time to really put everything together. So when we came in there, he saw a different guy who wasn't standing still to get hit. Strategically, I was like another person."
This was one of the lessons the now-38-year-old learned from his fight against Inoue when he fought fire with fire instead of also preparing a defensive strategy.
Against the French fighter, it was clear that defense was a big part of the game plan. Being the shorter fighter, Oubaali had to cut the distance to get inside the pocket so instead of meeting him there, Donaire made it a point to step back every time he rushed in.
This game plan was similar to the one the Filipino boxer used against Fernando Montiel in 2011, when he started his first reign as bantamweight king.
"With Montiel, I took a gamble on getting hit and countering over it and it was the same thing with Oubaali. I took the gamble of getting hit with the straight, but it set me up to throw the left hook," he detailed. "I got caught with a straight from Oubaali and I felt that I can take his punches and he's not that strong."
Rachel added another aspect to the strategy, urging Donaire to lure his opponent into a false sense of security in the early going.
"I was throwing my uppercuts a lot in the beginning. The strategy that my wife and I put together was to keep throwing the uppercut and make him forget about the hook," he said. "When he forgot about it, that's when we started landing the big punch."
Come fight night, it was only a matter of execution. Without a doubt, Donaire was up to the task.
By lowering his guard, the Filipino repeatedly set traps for Oubaali who likes throwing a rear uppercut with his left hand. Once the former saw the latter's favored punch coming, he countered with his mean hook, a much quicker shot that also travels a shorter distance.
The French fighter also has the tendency of lowering his right hand as he's throwing his left uppercut. That was just the opening Donaire needed for his trademark punch.
"It felt great because we really worked hard for it. We trained so hard. We put everything in there. The whole team was so focused. We wanted that win so bad," he expressed, now a nine-time world champion.