Donaire vows Arce won’t go the full route

HOUSTON – Filipino Nonito Donaire Jr. said he hates going the distance even if he travelled all the way here to defend his WBO super-bantamweight title against Mexico’s Jorge Arce on Saturday.

Donaire, now considered an elite fighter, said it’s not going to be a long night at the Toyota Center, the home of the Houston Rockets.

Donaire vowed to knock Arce out.

“The fight’s not going to go the distance,” Donaire said Tuesday during a media workout he and Arce hosted at the Main Street Boxing Gym here.

“It sucks to go the distance,” Donaire was quoted by The Sweet Science as saying.

But that’s about all that Donaire said regarding the fight because he’s not the type who would talk trash and say nasty things about his opponents.

Arce is one of the most flamboyant fighters ever. He loves dramatic entrances and often climbs the ring wearing a cowboy hat, with a lollipop in his mouth.

It seems that Donaire and Arce have become friends. But that friendship ends when their scheduled 12-rounder begins.

“I never talk crap. I set the example. I do my talking inside the ring. I believe that being a professional boxer means you have to carry yourself well. I’m a professional.

“This is my job. This is what I do,” said Donaire, eyeing his fourth win of 2012 and a slot in the race for the Fighter of the Year award.

Donaire decisioned Wilfredo Vasquez last February and followed it up with another convincing points victory over South African Jeffrey Mathebula.

Still, fight fans asked for more from Donaire, and they got it when the pride of General Santos City knocked out Japan’s Toshiaki Nishioka last October.

“Everybody is entitled to their opinion and how they see fights. To me, I don’t like to go the distance. There is no satisfying victory unless it’s a knockout,” he said.

But Arce, 33 and trying to stretch the good years, will be there to fight because that’s what he has done his whole life.

“There are very few people who think that I can win and (say) many very ugly things about me. But that motivates me more to give a big surprise to all this Saturday,” Arce told Mexican newspaper Esto.