Donaire back as champion

MANILA, Philippines — It was not a pretty way to win the championship, but Filipino boxer Nonito Donaire Jr. is world champion once again.

In his return to the boxing ring for the first time since 2023, the 42-year-old Donaire annexed the World Boxing Association interim bantamweight championship after a technical decision victory over Chile’s Andres Campos yesterday at the Casino Buenos Aires in Argentina.

The fight was stopped in the ninth round after Donaire claimed he could not continue due to a cut in his right eye that was caused by an accidental head butt. The stoppage sent the bout to the scorecards.

The three judges scored the match 88-83, 87-84 and 87-84 all in favor of Donaire, which gave an anticlimactic finish to the return of “The Filipino Flash” to the ring since his loss against Alexandro Santiago in July 2023.

Now, the pride of Bohol is holding a 43-8 (with 28 knockouts) win-loss record. He joins minimumweight titleholders Melvin Jerusalem and Pedro Taduran as the Philippines’ active world champions.

Meanwhile, the 28-year-old Campos dropped to 17-3-1 (with 6 KOs).

Donaire was granted a title shot despite losing his last two fights, including a knockout defeat to pound-for-pound star Naoya Inoue in 2022.

In his next fight, he tried to regain the WBC bantamweight championship vacated by Inoue when the Japanese star moved up in weight. Donaire, however, lost a unanimous decision to Mexico’s Alejandro Santos in 2023.

Donaire already entered the record books in 2021 when, at 38 years old, he knocked out Nordine Oubali to win the WBC bantamweight crown – becoming the oldest 118-lb fighter to do so.

He has held titles at flyweight, super flyweight, bantamweight and featherweight.