By Manuel Perez: IBF light flyweight champion Ulises Solis (27-1-2, 20 KOs) successfully defended his title with a 12-round unanimous decision over challenger Glenn Donaire (17-4-1, 9 KOs) on Saturday night at the Palenque De La Expo, Hermosillo, in Sonora, Mexico. The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 120-108 and 120-107. However, the fight was much closer than the scored indicated as Donaire appeared to win four rounds at the minimum with his harder shots, and more aggressive fighting style compared to Solis, who was more focused on counter punching and boxing. The fight had countless head clashes, at least one -two in every round, and eventually a point was deducted from Donaire late in the fight. Much of the head clashes were caused by the fact that both fighters were often lunging forward with punches at the same time, causing both to bang heads frequently.
Solis, 26, was the more active fighter in the first round as he pumped out a fast jab constantly at Donaire. Though both fighters were the same height, Donaire looked much larger and stronger than Solis, and his punches were much harder as well. He stalked Solis around the ring in the first and hit him with several big shots in the round with right hands.
In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, Donaire keep Solis pinned to the ropes where he used his as target practice for big right hands to the head and left hooks to the body. Solis appeared to be making a mistake by staying backed up to the ropes because it didn’t give him an opportunity to use his better boxing skills and movement to get out of the way of Donaire’s bigger shots. I suppose he chose to stay on the ropes because he might have felt that Donaire would have dominated the action with his longer reach if the fight was conducted at the center of the ring. In the second, we saw the first of what would eventually be many head butts between the two fighters, causing Solis to be cut over his right eye.
In the 4th round, another head clash occurred, this one opening a cut over the left eye of Solis. There were two head butts in the round and each one bothered Solis badly, as he would stop fighting and grab his head, looking at the referee in anger as if to say, “Did you see that?” As far as action goes, Solis jabbed Donaire frequently and appeared to win the round due to the high number of jabs he connected with. Donaire seemed to have his rhythm thrown off by the head butts, and couldn’t get started with his right hands like he had in the past three rounds.
In the 5th round, both fighters banged heads hard at the start of the round. This would lead to swelling on the left eye of Donaire. Solis continued jabbing well, throwing little else. It was fairly dull action with few meaningful punches landed in the round to speak of.
Solis began opening up with left and right hands in the 6th round, tagging Donaire with one shot at a time. Solis appeared afraid to throw more than one punch at a time, however, perhaps wary of getting hit with one of Donaire’s big right hand shots.
Solis spent too much time avoiding action in the 7th round, looking to be actually running from Donaire, who chased him around the ring for the entire round. Most of the shots landed were from Donaire, who tagged Solis with a number of good right hands in the round. It appeared that Solis was taking the round off because he still looked very fresh.
Both fighters clashed heads a short time into the 8th round. This led to the referee deducting a point from Donaire, who had dived in with a punch and caused the head butt to occur. The deduction seemed to change the round, for Donaire fought much less effectively afterwards and was hit by a lot of jabs from Solis.
In the 9th round, Solis opened up with right hands and left hooks and fought well. There was, however, yet another head butt between the two fighters. By this time, Solis’ face began to look like the survivor of a car crash, not from the punches that hit him, but rather from the constant flow of head butts coming in.
In the 10th and 11th rounds, Solis easily out-boxed Donaire, who was beginning to show signs of tiring out. Again, there was another head butt, this one in the 11th round.
In the final round, Solis used quick combinations and his jab to control Donaire, hitting him often in the round. Donaire, however, landed some big shots in the round and may have done enough with those punches to win the round.
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