Nonito Donaire accepts loss to Rigondeaux, focusing on coming back stronger

Nonito Donaire stirred up a lot of talk this week, when he said that he felt he'd done enough to win the fight against Guillermo Rigondeaux, which he lost on Saturday in New York. Fans and media largely laughed off the comments, or saw Donaire as a delusional fighter reaching for an excuse.

On tonight's edition of Boxing Scene Radio, "The Filipino Flash" changed his tune, noting the differences between what he felt in the ring on fight night, and what he saw watching it back.

"I thought that I did enough to take the fight," he said. "(I thought) I didn't do enough to entertain the people, but again, when you're in there, it's a different story, because you push, you try to make the fight happen, and I felt that I wasn't really getting tagged with a lot of things. I thought I was getting hit with little jabs."

Donaire said after he watched the fight on TV, he knew that he had been hit more than he previously thought, and accepted that he'd lost the fight.

"Getting out of the ring, I felt I did enough. Looking at it now, I didn't."

Donaire (31-2, 20 KO) analyzed his flawed approach, again saying that he simply didn't do much of anything but try to look for a one-shot KO punch.

"Your power is nothing when you can't land it properly, and that was the ironic thing, because I always said that, but I was the one falling into that, because I believed in my power, and I didn't do what I was supposed to," he said.

"I was sluggish. I was slow and sluggish, and I didn't do my job."

Donaire said later that he did want a rematch, and added, "I know in my heart he's not better than me in terms of speed and power. He outsmarted me, and that's something that's never been done in my career."

As for the talk of struggling due to a bum shoulder, which he will have surgery on, and struggling with weight, Donaire pushed that aside and gave Rigondeaux credit for outboxing him. "I chose (to fight). That was my decision to cut down to 122 and fight this fight (with the bad shoulder)."

"I didn't do my part. Mentally, I didn't do my job. I didn't listen. I'm gonna go back to who I was."