Rachel Donaire. | Screen grab from the Beyond The Ring Episode.
CEBU CITY, Philippines—An emotional Rachel Donaire took to social media the hurt and embarrassed she received from MP Promotions top honcho Sean Gibbons.
On Monday, October 18, 2021, Rachel Donaire, the wife and trainer of four-division world champion Nonito “Filipino Flash” Donaire Jr., appeared very emotional in a live stream video on their Facebook page Beyond The Ring.
Rachel explained that she was embarrassed by Gibbons on the latter’s Instagram account last weekend.
“And you think I’ll get used to the slander, ‘yung sobrang below the belt comments, parang I thought, I’ve been in this industry for 13 years, alam ko yung macho thinking nila, alam ko what they’re going to say yung questions directly. They will just attack me. You never get used to it. I’m not always strong,” said Rachel Donaire.
The Donaires initially invited Gibbons to be their guest in on one of their live streaming episodes to shed light on the latter’s issue with WBO world bantamweight champion John Riel Casimero, but it was declined.
“As you know it’s always been really difficult for me to be in front of the camera. When I come from the camera, I’m always the strongest person. As you guys saw, when someone lies, when someone drags me through the mud, of course, I might be okay, because I’m strong,” added Rachel.
“I’ve always told you guys that someone’s galit, merong underlining, emotion, di ba? The emotion was an embarrassment, disappointment, hurt.”
The guesting supposedly was focused on shedding light about the issue between Gibbons and Casimero after the latter aired his sentiments on social media that MP Promotions didn’t make an effort to place a bid in his upcoming mandatory title defense versus Paul Butler in December.
The purse bid was won by Probellum of Richard Schaefer uncontested. Probellum eventually signed Casimero and Butler to promote their bout.
READ: Casimero title defense taking shape as Probellum Promotions wins bid to promote fight
According to the Donaires, all they wanted to do was to help Casimero and Gibbons reconcile, which is also their way to help a ‘fellow Filipino’ in boxing.
The squabble between the Donaires and Gibbons can be traced back to August when Nonito Jr. and Casimero were supposedly fighting for a world title unification bout that was eventually botched due to several issues.
One of the issues was the lack of transparency of Casimero’s Voluntary Anti Doping Agency (VADA) documents and the latter’s disrespectful comments against Donaire’s family.
However, both world champions ended their rift eventually after Casimero apologized for his disrespectful comments.
Donaire advised Casimero to solve his issue with Gibbons to make their world title unification bout happen.
Photo: Screen grab from the Beyond The Ring Episode.