NIETES WINS BY TKO OVER VELARDE; WILL BREAK ELORDE'S RECORD BY NEW YEAR
By Dong Secuya
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 16 Nov 2014
CEBU CITY ? Donnie 'Ahas' Nietes retained his WBO junior flyweight belt via 7th round TKO after his corner refused to allow Carlos Velardo to fight at the beginning of the 8th round due to the cut he suffered earlier as hall of fame referee Robert Byrd immediately raised Nietes' hand in victory to the delight of the full-house crowd at the Waterfront Hotel & Casino here Saturday night.
Nietes thus successfully hit his target to break Filipino boxing legend Gabriel 'Flash' Elorde's long standing record set in 1967 as the longest reigning world champion in the Philippines. Nietes, however, has to wait for the clock to strike at 12:01 on January 1, 2015, the new year, to officially surpass Elorde's record of seven years and three months.
Nietes dominated Velarde with accurate head shots and uppercuts the whole night and was comfortably ahead in all the judges scorecards after the 7th round. Rose Lascend of the United States has it 68-65; Masakazu Murasi of Japan, 70-63 and Salven Lagumbay of the Philippines, 70-63.
In other results, Milan Melindo won by unanimous decision over speedy Saul Juarez in chess match. Scores were 115-113 by Ian Scott of New Zealand, 116-112 by Alejandro Lopez of Mexico and 118-111 by Samson Libres of the Philippines.
'Prince' Albert Pagara won impressively by unanimous decision over Raul Hirales of Mexico. Pagara sent Hirales to the canvas in the third round en route to a dominating scores of 120-107, 120-107 and 119-108.
Former world champion Merlito 'Tiger' Sabillo suffered the lone defeat by the Philippines when he lost via 4th round TKO against Faris Nenggo of Indonesia.
AJ Banal won by unanimous decision over Maxsaisai Sithsaithong of Thailand while up and comer Mark Magsayo won by 2nd round TKO over Korea's Moon-San Jung.
The big surprise of the night was the fight between WBO and IBF world champion Francisco Rodriguez of Mexico who was brought into deep waters by late substitute and heavy underdog Jomar Fajardo of the Philippines. Rodriguez was hitting Fajardo with volume punches in the early rounds when a looping right apparently broke Rodriguez's nose in the 3rd round that bled throughout the fight. The fight ended in a split draw with scores 98-92, 95-95 and 94-96.
Photo: Referee Robert Byrd raises Nietes' hand in victory Saturday night at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Dong Secuya.
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