By Jeff Aranow: Making his ninth title defense of his WBO light flyweight title, champion Donnie Nietes (38-1-4, 22 KOs) easily defeated #4 WBO Raul Garcia (38-4-1, 23 Kos) by a 5th round knockout on Saturday night at the University of St. La Salle Coliseum in Bacolod City, Philippines.
The 34-year-old Nietes knocked Garcia down hard twice in the third round. Nietes continued to give the 33-year-old Garcia grief in the four and fifth rounds with heavy combinations to the head and body.
Garcia fought back hard and was able to land some nice shots of his own, but they were no match for the big punches that Nietes was landing in return. Garcia failed to come out for round six.
Nietes has a nice nine-year run going as the WBO light flyweight champion. The last time Nietes was beaten was in 2004 in losing a 10 round decision to Carlo Besares. For Nietes to get some real competition, he might need to move up to flyweight to face Roman Gonzalez. I don’t see that happening though, but that would be a very tough fight for Nietes.
Gonzalez, 28, is younger and arguably hits harder than Nietes. It might be a bad match-up for the soon to be 35-year-old Nietes. That might be reason enough why we probably won’t see Nietes move up to flyweight to take the fight with Gonzalez, even though it would bring him a nice payday. It might give him a knockout loss, and I don’t think that’s something Nietes wants to happen.
In the past, Garcia held the IBF/WBO IBF Minimumweight titles. Garcia lost his IBF title to Nkosinathi Joyi in March 2010. In 2011, Garcia lost his WBO title to Moises Fuentes. Since then, he’s been a mere contender.
In other action on the card, #9 IBF junior bantamweight Arthur Villanueva (29-1, 15 KOs) defeated journeyman Juan Jimenez (22-10, 15 KOs) by a 4th round stoppage. The fight was halted after Jimenez was knocked out when the two fighters bumped heads in the 4th. Jimenez was also down in the 3rd round. Villanueva hit the deck in the 2nd round.
Other boxing results on the card:
Milan Melindo TD 7 Maximo Flores