ALTHOUGH the decision of his recent world championship fight was a bitter pill to swallow, three-division world champion Donnie Nietes has already moved on - ready for the bigger fights up ahead in the super flyweight division.
“I want to face either (Roman) Gonzalez or (Juan Francisco) Estrada next. There’s no need for a rematch, I clearly won that fight,” the 36-year-old Nietes said yesterday.
Nietes clearly outboxed a younger and bigger Aston Palicte in their all-Filipino world championship fight for the vacant World Boxing Organization (WBO) super flyweight belt in the co-main feature of “Superfly 3” last Sept. 8 at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
Two of the judges, however, thought differently. Judge Daniel Sandoval had a convincing 118-110 score for Nietes, judge Robert Hoyle saw it differently with a score of 116-112 for Palicte, while judge Max DeLuca saw it even at 114-114 for a split draw.
“Everybody thought Donnie won. Despite the controversy, we are happy that everybody thought he won,” said ALA Promotions matchmaker Edito Villamor. “He was deprived of his legacy of becoming a four-division world champion. It will be delayed. It’s painful for our part but that’s boxing.”
According to Edito, some famous boxing personalities, the likes of legendary coach Nacho Beristain, boxing legend Julio Cesar Chavez and Gennady Golovkin’s coach Abel Sanchez, came up to tell Nietes that he won the fight.
Despite the size disparity, Nietes was very effective with his patient and technical approach. He also took the punches of Palicte, who has a 74 percent knockout percentage, really well.
“Our game plan was to feel him out in the first three rounds when he’s still strong. But after that, I told Donnie to control the center of the ring,” said Nietes’ coach Edmund Villamor.
As the rounds went on, Nietes was slowly breaking down Palicte and even rocked him a couple of times in the final round.
“If there was a little bit of time left, I felt that I would have knocked him out. The canvass was just so slippery that I had a difficulty in catching him,” said Nietes.
Some of Nietes’s possible opponents for his ring return are World Boxing Council (WBC) super flyweight king Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, three-division world champion Roman Gonzalez and two-division world titleholder Juan Francisco Estrada.
“We want the big names - Sor Rungvisai, Estrada, ‘Chocolatito’. I know these fights will come to Donnie, despite the draw. We don’t need a rematch,” said Nietes. (EKA)