By Jim Dower: WBO super flyweight interim champion Nonito Donaire (24-1, 16 KO’s) overcame a lackluster start to stop knockout artist Hernan Marquez (27-2, 20 KO’s) in the 8th round on Saturday night at the Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Donaire, 27, knocked the much smaller Marquez down two times in the fight, dropping him in the 5th and a final time in the 8th. The bout was stopped by referee Roberto Ramirez at 2:59 of the 8th round following the second knockdown of the fight.

Donaire, who plans on moving up to the bantamweight division immediately, experimented with a southpaw stance during the first four rounds of Saturday’s fight. Perhaps Donaire thought that he could limit the amount of times that the hard-punching southpaw Marquez landed his powerful left hand shots. However, it didn’t seem to work that well for Donaire, as he still got hit a lot and looked rather mediocre until he switched back to the right side and fought out of the orthodox stance.

Once Donaire switched back to righty, he found immediate success, dropping Marquez with a hard left hand to the head. Moments before that, Marquez had landed a tremendous left hand that seemed to get Donaire’s attention. Donaire looked like he just woken up from a nap, because he fired back a big left hand of his own that immediately hurt Marquez, causing to back up. Marquez, now hurt, tried to clinch to make it out of the round.

However, Donaire wasn’t going to be put off and worked out enough room to land a left that put Marquez down. When the action resumed, Donaire hurt Marquez again, this time with a big left uppercut that snapped Marquez’s head back and caused him to grab Donaire’s legs in a take down effort.

Donaire did little in rounds six and seven, working mostly on his jab and trying to stay out of the way of Marquez’s big shots. It worked somewhat, as Donaire landed a lot of jabs in both rounds. However, Marquez was able to land some big shots in both the 6th and especially the 7th. The crowd didn’t like Donaire fighting in a conservative manner and began to boo. In the 8th round, with still more booing going on by some members of the crowd, Donaire finally got energized and landed a big left uppercut that dropped Marquez to the canvas. Marquez made it back to his feet but stumbled a little as he was being looked over by the referee. This was all it took for the referee to stop the fight, unfortunately. Marquez looked like he could have fought a little bit longer but he most likely would have been stopped in the same round had it continued.

Donaire said afterwards that he’ll be moving up to the bantamweight division where he hopes to get a fight against Fernando Montiel.

Other results on the card:

Jonathan Oquendo KO 9 Eden Sonsona
Victor Bisbal KO 1 David Whittom
Jose A. Gonzalez KO 1 Matthew Robinson
Carlos Negron UD 8 Gustavo Enriquez