Nonito Donaire took a major gamble when he decided to fight Jorge Arce on Saturday in Houston.
The Filipino Flash busted up his knuckle during his 9th-round TKO win over Toshiaki Nishioka on October 13. The cut on Donaire’s knuckle on his left hand was so bad one could see blood through his hand wraps. It required eight stitches to close.
Donaire only gave himself just over two months between fights, which hardly seems like enough time to allow such a severe injury to heal. Luckily for Nonaire, the knuckle didn’t seem to bother him on Saturday. He demolished Arce with a third-round KO.
Donaire said after the fight that he had to take it easy during his training because of the knuckle.
“When we sparred, we didn’t really go hard in our sparring except for the last one to try it out,” Donaire told HBO’s Larry Merchant. “We were kind of nervous going into this fight.”
In the video below, you can see Donaire getting stitches on the knuckle:
