When Nonito Donaire guns for another slice of history on Saturday night, he will have a familiar face pulling for him.
Donaire is aiming to break his own record by becoming the youngest bantamweight world champion in history against Alex Santiago and that is something promoter and manager Richard Schaefer is hoping to see.
“I haven’t been doing much boxing, but I still handle Nonito Donaire,” said Schaefer.
“He is going to attempt to become a 10-time world champion and is fighting for the WBC title. He is like my little brother, so I am helping him with everything. I negotiated the fight, got him ranked and these types of things.”
Donaire-Santiago was due to take place a couple of weeks ago, but they have been added to the Spence-Crawford bill to beef up the undercard.
“Yeah, exactly,” Schaefer said. “So you are gonna get that title, hopefully on Saturday night. Then we are going to try and unify the weight class. Because Al Haymon has the IBF champion, then my good friend Mr Honda has the WBA champion. And then Top Rank has Moloney, so we are going to try. First things first, we are going to see at this point in his career that is if Nonito Donaire can become undisputed, and he has achieved a lot... A five-division world champion, that will be good…”
This week, Donaire has spoken of that dream, of winning all of the bantam belts before he’s content to retire, but the Filipino is looking at his boxing bucket-list rather than his own historical significance in the sport.
“I don’t really look into all that stuff,” Donaire said. “For me I got a bigger vision ahead of me, I want to take all the belts. I want to take all of that and become undisputed. That is the only thing I have not done in boxing. I became Fighter of the Year, got Knockout of the Year. All the accolades, you unify multiple divisions, but I have never become undisputed. That is something that gives me the biggest purpose, that is why I am still fighting because I still do love the sport.”
Donaire says he’s doing it for him now, in a selfish way. He wants to build his legacy and be the author of more memorable nights.
And Schaefer is with him for it.
“That’s why I am here but other than that I am working for a company called Anthem Sports [in Canada],” Schaefer added.
“I’m president of their sports division. I am primarily in their wrestling business with Impact Wrestling, we actually announced just today a UK tour. We are going to do three events, actually one is Glasgow, one outside of London and one in Newcastle. In wrestling, it’s the third largest company behind WWE and AEW. It is the third largest wrestling business in the world. And so I joined them because I see tremendous upside. I am going to do that, but I am going to get back into boxing as well. I am filling for a new company, promoters’ licence and we will be back.”
Schaefer said that would be in the US while looking for acquisitions in Europe, too.
This week, a new documentary was launched on Schaefer’s old business partner De La Hoya and Schaefer has watched it.
“Yes, I did,” he said. “Well, I think if it helps him then great. I think it was very well done. Mark Wahlberg knows what he’s doing, so I think it was good.”
Did Schaefer enjoy it considering his acrimonious split from the Golden Boy?
“Well, you know,” Schaefer went on. “They asked me to be in it and I decided not to because I’ve turned that page. But I enjoyed watching it because a lot of it I knew. And… I know even a little bit more.”
