NONITO DONAIRE JR. suffered another career setback after losing by unanimous decision to Carl Frampton on Sunday dawn (RP time) in the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Frampton outclassed Donaire Jr. in a 12-round title fight for the interim World Boxing Organization (WBO) featherweight crown.

All three judges had identical scorecards of 117-111 in favor of the 31-year-old Frampton, a two-division world champion.

Donaire Jr. dropped to 38-5 with 24 knockouts, while Frampton improved to 25-1 with 14 knockouts.

This was the 35-year-old Donaire’s fifth fight as a featherweight, and he has lost two of them.

Donaire Jr. tried his luck at featherweight back in 2014 and captured the World Boxing Association (WBA) featherweight with a fifth-round stoppage of Simpiwe Vetyeka. In his next, he was destroyed by Nicholas Walters in six rounds.

He dropped back to super bantamweight and won the WBO belt with a unanimous verdict over Cesar Juarez in 2015 but lost the belt to Jessie Magdaleno the following year by a unanimous decision.

Despite the defeat, it seems as if Donaire Jr. has no plans of hanging it up but is move back down in weight.

“Congratulations, my brother (Frampton). May you continue to be on top,” Donaire Jr. wrote in his Facebook page. “My team, family, and Ringstar will have a meeting but I think it has already been pre-decided that although I have done my best to gain weight and keep my weight on and strong, it’s best I move back down in weight.” (EKA)