Donaire destroys Prado in 2nd round TKO

By Boxing News - 03/28/2015 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Fighting for the first time at super bantamweight since he was whipped by Guillermo Rigondeaux two years ago in 2013, former four division world champion Nonito Donaire (34-3, 22 KOs) did what everyone expected him to do in stopping a badly over-matched 2nd tier fighter William Prado (22-5-1, 15 KOs) in the 2nd round on Saturday night to capture the vacant NABF super bantamweight title at the Araneta Coliseum, Barangay Cubao, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

The fight was halted in the 2nd round after Donaire hurt the 31-year-old Prado with some big shots. You can make an argument that the fight should have been stopped in the 1st round because it was totally one-sided with the 32-year-old Donaire teeing off on the helpless looking Prado with shot after shot. Prado was walking into big left hooks, and getting nailed by right hands. It was all one-way traffic for Donaire.

Donaire is too old to be fighting weak opposition like this. He’s going to have to get off the soft diet and start facing quality guys again unless he wants to age out fighting tune-up opposition. He’s going to need to get ranked if he wants to fight the likes of IBF champ Carl Frampton or WBA champion Scott Quigg. Those are the only guys that Donaire can fight right now that are champions. He’s probably not going to get a fight against WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz because he’s with high powered adviser Al Haymon, who doesn’t work with Donaire’s promoter Bob Arum. Donaire can always fight Rigondeaux again for his WBA and WBO titles, but I somehow doubt that Donaire or Top Rank will want to take that fight again after what happened the last time.

In other action on the card, WBO light flyweight champion Donnie Nietes (35-1-4, 21 KOs) successfully defended his WBO strap with a 10th round stoppage win over an over-matched Gilberto Parra (19-3, 17 KOs). Parra was knocked to the canvas in the 8th. The fight was officially halted at the start of round 10 due to Parra opting not to continue fighting. While this was a little more competitive than the Donaire-Prado mismatch, it wasn’t that much more competitive.

Nietes needs to be fighting much better opposition than this in order to give the boxing fans their money’s worth. I’d like to see Nietes fight the likes of Javier Mendoza, Adrian Hernandez, Akira Yaegashi, Randy Petalcorin, Alberto Rossel or Raul Garcia. Those guys would give Nietes a run for his money, and maybe even beat him.



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