Nietes Wins WBO Int'l Title But Fights With Big 3 Still Far Off
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 04 Apr 2021
Nietes connects with a right at Carillo.
As promised, MTK Global gave Donnie 'Ahas' Nietes a big break coming back from more than two years of hiatus, allowing Donnie to win a part of the world super flyweight title he used to wholly own in the World Boxing Organization (WBO).
Nietes won almost every round of his 12 round bout against Pablo Carillo in pounding out a unanimous decision victory to win the vacant WBO international super flyweight title in the undercard of the Jamel Herring's successful defense of his WBO super featherweight crown versus the UK's Carl Frampton in Dubai, UAE.
It was a small though still major step for Nietes in his way to regaining his WBO world title, now owned by Japan's Kazuto Ioka, and forging fights versus the troika of Juan Francisco Estrada, Roman Gonzalez and Srisaket Sor Rungvusai which possibility remains far off.
Estrada recently fought and defeated Gonzalez in the rematch of their fight at light flyweight years ago and added Gonzalez's WBA super title to his WBC and Ring Magazine trinkets. But due to the close, controversial nature of his revenge victory, the WBC decided to order an immediate title rematch this time with Estrada's newly designated super title at stake.
To appease Sor Rungvusai who was supposed to be mandatory challenger to the winner, Estrada, the WBC designated the Thai to fight Mexican Carlos Cuadras, also a former WBC champion for the WBC regular belt made vacant with the promotion of Estrada as super champion. With the winner facing the victor of the Estrada-Gonzalez rubber match.
Therefore, Nietes facing any of the big 3 this year is far from possible.
Hence, Nietes should focus his attention on regaining the WBO crown from Ioka, ironically the very man he defeated in late 2018 for the same title and the man who went on to take his place in the elite top 10 pound for pound list with scintillating performance the past two years, with wins over Aston Palicte for the title Nietes eschewed in 2019 and Jayvier Cintron and Kosei Tanaka in title defenses.
But first, Nietes has to wait if his WBO international title win over Carillo would be enough to placate the WBO powers that be who could still be harboring hurt feelings from his unceremonious dumping of the title two years ago to the point of not only restoring him to the ranks of contenders but giving him a ranking high enough for a title crack versus Ioka.
The fact that the WBO sanctioned his fight versus Carillo was an encouraging sign that the organization is ready to patch things up with its former prodigal champion.
But giving Nietes an immediate title shot against Ioka may be another thing.
Nevertheless, it seems that Ioka has no other viable foe to fight but Nietes in his own bid to get into the lucrative super flyweight sweepstakes.
And he has another motivation to facing Nietes: To avenge his only other career loss. Ioka suffered his first loss to Thailand's Amnat Rueneoeng at flyweight but that did not prevent him to win a world title at that division as his loss to Nietes did not prevent him to eventually win a world crown at super flyweight, making him only the second Japanese to win world titles in four weight classes.
Ioka has served notice recently of his desire to win all the belts at super flyweight and thus improve further his pound for pound standing. But to do that, he first has to remove a major
stumbling block in the person of Nietes, a former tormentor.
That is if the WBO goes along with his plan.
If the WBO does not and designate another challenger for Ioka to fight, Nietes may be forced to take another route. He may take on the winner of the Joshua Franco- Andrew Moloney rubber match for the WBA regular super flyweight title. His recent victim, Carillo is rated by the WBA and he may also break the WBA ranking with his victory.
Especially if Franco wins, as Franco is a stablemate at MTK Global which will have no problem pitting the two.
Franco closely defeated Moloney to win the WBA regular flyweight title prompting a rematch. The return bout was ruled a technical draw after the referee ruled that the eye injury suffered by Franco may be caused by a head butt which a technical panel failed to confirm resulting to a controversy requiring a third fight between the two which is yet to be set.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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