All ROADS lead to St. La Salle Gym in Bacolod City this Saturday night as Donnie ?Ahas? Nietes guns for his second world title against Ramon Garcia ?Principe? Hirales.
Tickets are reportedly selling like hotcakes as it?s not every day that a local kid gets to fight for a world title before the adoring hometown crowd.
I always thought Donnie would eventually outgrow the 105-pound division, what with those broad, wide shoulders of his, and I believe this is an opportune time for him to move up in weight before mother nature and father time conspire to deplete him of his youthful virtues.
GARCIA. ?Principe? is definitely no callow novice with an impressive record of 16 wins, 9 via the short route, against only two losses, both of which came via split decision.
He is a southpaw who likes to advance behind a high guard, throw jabs and follow it up with hooks. He has no aversion to mixing it up, which I think is advantageous to Donnie who is a terrific counter-puncher.
In his last fight, he won the rematch with Jesus Geles by avenging the split decision loss with a fourth round stoppage.
NIETES. ?Ahas? on the other hand, is coming off a scintillating first round stoppage of Armando Vasquez and is undefeated in seven years.
The way I see it, Donnie should take this one via unanimous decision. Garcia can be a bit wild with his left which should provide Nietes with plenty of opportunities to land his money shot- a right straight hand down the pipe.
PAY PER VIEW. I probably won?t be able to make the trip to Bacolod this weekend but I plan on catching the fight on pay- per-view that same night.
Featuring a world championship fight being held in a neighboring city on pay-per-view is unprecedented and I?m interested to see how this pans out.
STYLES MAKE FIGHTS. Over the weekend, a couple of interesting fights definitely merit some of our precious column space.
Japanese Toshiaki Nishioka (39-4, 24 KOs) defeated former champion Rafael Marquez (40-7, 36KOs) via unanimous decision to retain his WBC super bantamweight title.
Usually, cracks appear before the whole house tumbles down, and you can probably invoke that in Marquez?s case. While he still seemed to possess the power and aggression that made him such a feared puncher, he was tentative at times , which made the Japanese look splendid with his busier work rate.
Age was not a factor as only one year separated the two veterans, but for Marquez, it could be a case of all those bloody wars in too many arenas catching up on him.
Or it could also be Nishioka?s awkward southpaw style that threw him off. Marquez is always fun to watch but he is 3-4 in his last seven fights and this might be a good indication of where he is at right now.
As for Nishioka, a reckoning with WBC bantamweight Nonito Donaire down the line is sure to be intriguing.
Elsewhere, Sergio Martinez (48-2, 27KOs) stopped Darren Barker (23-1, 14KOs) in 11 rounds, but it turned out to be more competitive than what most people expected.
The British challenger held his own for the first half of the fight behind some basic boxing and a seemingly impregnable defense.
But Martinez would not be denied as he continued to peck away until he broke through in the 11th round.
Many have dubbed Martinez?s performance as unimpressive, but then again styles makes fights. Barker was very defensive-minded and that doesn?t mesh well with a counter-puncher like Martinez who prefers to wait for openings.
But because Martinez is a pound-for-pound entrant, often mentioned in the same breath as Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, perhaps expectations were high that he would handle matters more decisively.
LAST ROUND. It?s on boxing scribe Dennis ?dSource? Guillermo, who is in town en route to catching the big event in Bacolod. Cheers!
