Donnie Nietes on boxing, dangerous and murderous shirts, Facebook, and the drive to the top
words and pictures by rick olivares
He wraps his own tape not because he has no one to do it but he likes it that way. He has a better feel for it he explains.
He is wearing a shirt that he got in Mexico that reads: “Muerte! Peligro! Guitarras!” He doesn’t understand what it says; all he knows that it looks cool and dangerous. Co-trainer and fellow Bacolod native Franklin Albia translates it for him (Death! Danger! Guitars!). “Dangerous din naman ako,” Nietes laughs.
These days, training is somewhat lighter and more for conditioning and watching his weight as the fight is around the corner. Two matters occupy his daily routine – training and Facebook. He laughs at the absurdity. “Naka-relax,” he says of the latter, a social networking phenomenon, that has allowed him to stay in touch with friends. Surely Ali never trained like that.
The modern complexities – living in a rented apartment in Gilmore (and three days before the fight he will transfer to the Manila Hotel) and applications of the digital age are far from the old life in the slums of Bacolod where he hung out not knowing what was to become of him. Nietes was inspired by his uncle, Dan, who had taken up the sport and he soon found a way to Tony Aldeguer’s famed ALA Gym in Cebu. Not as a boxer but as a janitor first and it’s something he did for over a year. When his duties were done and when the gym was empty, he trained and drove himself with a passion. More than boxing being in his blood, he saw it as a way out.
He’s fought twice in Mexico and came away with wins on both occasions (flooring Eric Ramirez and surviving a split decision against Manuel Vargas). The partisan crowd jeered him but he wanted more. Inspiration for him, he says as he used the unsavory words as motivation. Fighting out of the country has also changed his approach. He knows he has to knock out his foe or else the decision can go against him such as his first and only loss so far to Indonesian Angky Angkota in a match in Jakarta in 2004.
But he knows the path to success lies in fighting out of the country and he hopes that soon after this fourth title defense of his World Boxing Organization Minimumweight title, he’ll log more flyer miles and victories to add to his 25 wins (with 14 knockouts, 1 loss and 3 draws). He’s 27 and approaching his prime. The big push has to be now.
Silvestre, who hails from Nayarit, Mexico, comes in with a 15-1 record with 12 KOs and was the World Boxing Council’s Minimumweight titlist in 2008. That’s serious knockout power but Nietes is confident. Another modern complexity – watching game tape of his opponents – is readily available for his strategy and he likes what he sees. Nietes hopes to send his foe to La La Land in the first five rounds.
Nietes was original scheduled to fight Ivan Meneses first then Sammy Gutierrez but things didn’t work out with the purse of the match before Silvestre agreed to the stipulations. Because of the delay in the fight, the champ has sparred for over a hundred sixty rounds. It might seem a heavy toll but Nietes admits that he is used to it and it keeps him sharp. Hard to shadow box all day he reasons with a smile.
The fight couldn’t come soon enough.
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This article also appears in today -- the Tuesday January 19 2010 edition of the Business Mirror. Thanks to Paolo Diaz and Dana Errazo as well as Mike Ochosa.
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