By Chris Williams: Bob Arum of Top Rank says that four division world champion Nonito Donaire (33-2, 21 KO’s) will be back in the ring as soon as the cut over his left eye heals. The date he’s looking at is for November 23rd on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao’s next fight card in Macao, China. Having Donaire on Pacquiao’s undercard might pump up the pay-per-view numbers a little bit for HBO, but probably not enough to bring it over 1 million buys unless Pacquiao fights Juan Manuel Marquez.
Donaire suffered a cut over his left eye from a head-clash in the 1st round last Saturday night in his fight against Vetyeka in Macao, China. The fight was controversial because instead of the fight being halted within the first three rounds, it was allowed to continue until just long enough for a victor to be decided.
It just happened that Donaire had his best round of the fight in the 4th round where he was able to knock Vetyeka, the WBA Super World featherweight champion, down from a left hand. Why the wait until after the 4th round for the fight to be halted instead of in the first three rounds?
Arum had said recently that he wanted to see Donaire fight WBA champ Nicholas Walters or IBF champ Evgeny Gradovich. So unless Donaire pushes hard for the rematch against Vetyeka, we could see Donaire facing one of those two fighters instead.
There really weren’t any winners or losers in the Vetyeka fight because the fight didn’t last long enough for anyone to really tell who the better fighter was between the two of them. The fight was a standstill with Vetyeka getting the better of Donaire in the first three rounds, but then getting knocked down in the 4th. You can call it a draw, and I thought three scores of the judges [49-46, 49-46, and 49-46] were out of touch with the fight that took place last Saturday night. To me, it either a draw or a narrow victory for Vetyeka. Donaire didn’t look improved at all from his last two fights against Vic Darchinyan and Guillermo Rigondeaux. Donaire didn’t look anything like the same fighter he was in 2012 when he was voted Fighter of the Year.
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