BONSUBRE: THERE SHOULD BE A REMATCH, BUT WHERE?
By Rene Bonsubre, Jr.
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 09 Sep 2018
It was another fight for the Philippine sports history books. The second world title fight this year involving two Filipino boxers. This was supposed to be another celebration of Filipino talent and how far we?ve come as a force in professional boxing since Pancho Villa defended his world flyweight title against Clever Sencio on May 2, 1925 in Manila.
But the official result did not leave a winner .
The official scores - Robert Hoyle 116-112 for Palicte, Daniel Sandoval 118-110 for Nietes, Max DeLuca 114-114.
Nietes gave a performance that fans in Cebu and the rest of the Philippines are used to seeing from him. He was patient and technical.
Going into this fight I thought the 27 year old Palicte had a chance because of his size and youth. Nietes was nine years older and was fighting at 115 lbs for the first time.
Palicte was more active and he did land hard shots but Compubox showed that even if he threw more - 830 punches against Nietes' 523 ? Palicte landed less; Nietes connected with 37 percent of his shots, compared to 15 percent for Palicte.
Compubox showed that in terms of power punches, Palicte landed 11.1 per round, Nietes 10.5. Somewhat even but Nietes was more efficient in terms of percentage of power hits. Those who paid attention to the 10th round saw Nietes making Palicte miss wildly like a novice.
Donnie Nietes connects with a hard right against Aston Palicte during their WBO world title fight at The Forum in Inglewood, CA Saturday night.
I expected more from Palicte. A couple of weeks ago, I discussed the fight with a couple of boxing writers here in Cebu and one of the scenarios that came up was that Palicte would use Jeff Horn?s playbook against Manny Pacquiao; Use his physical advantages to rough up the smaller guy.
That didn?t happen.
Engaging Nietes in a chess match is simply the wrong way to go.
But this was the kind of fight that only students of boxing history and the sweet science appreciate. The casual fans who are in it for blood will never appreciate Nietes.
Therein lies a problem.
The WBO world junior bantamweight title remains vacant. There will be two boxers required to fight for it in the coming months.
If the paying public in the U.S. don?t want to see another all-Filipino world title fight because Jerwin Ancajas vs Jonas Sultan and Nietes vs Palicte paled in comparison to Mexican civil wars like Marco Antonio Barrera vs Erik Morales, then the rematch should be held in the Philippines.
Nietes (41-1-5,23KO?s) deserves another chance to make history and win a fourth title that would make him join the likes of Nonito Donaire and Manny Pacquiao as the only Filipinos who have won four or more world title belts. He has been a world champ in three divisions since 2007 and has not lost a fight since 2004.
Palicte (24-2-1,20KO?s) also worked hard to be where he is now. He too deserves to have another crack at the title.
Both are from the island of Negros. That would be one of the possible venues aside from Cebu and Metro Manila.
It is also interesting to note that Nietes had one previous title fight that ended in a majority draw and the referee of that fight was also Jack Reiss. The 2013 fight in Cebu City against Mexican Moises Fuentes was Nietes? second defense of his WBO light flyweight title. In the rematch fourteen months later, Nietes stopped Fuentes in nine rounds at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Familiarity does breed contempt. That?s another reason to watch the rematch.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Rene Bonsubre, Jr..
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