Donnie “Ahas” Nietes retains his WBO light flyweight belt over the sturdy and effective Mexican challenger and reigning WBO straw weight champion Moises Fuentes over a majority draw.
The two fighters clashed in a back-and-forth tide over 12 rounds of an exciting fight that was held at Waterfront Center in Cebu.
Fuentes was the more aggressive of the two, continuously pouring the champion with his jabs and hooks almost all throughout the rounds. However, it looks like being aggressive was not enough to win over the champion’s guard and evasive foot work, mixing it with counter punches that targeted and found their way in the challenger’s head from time to time.
Both fighters had their moments, each of them connecting with their own power punches.
Two judges scored the fight with 114-114, while the third gave it 115-113, favoring the hometown champ, Nietes. Nietes kept the WBO title with such a needle-hole slim luck margin.
Of course it didn’t sit well with the Mexican challenger’s camp, which was obviously seen as the aggressor for the most rounds, believing that the draw was made with a hometown advantage in order for them to not take the belt home to Mexico.
Both camps though expressed their willingness to stage a rematch between the two boxers to settle and end the fight with a more believable and rock-hard finish. The rematch will probably take place when Pinoy Pride stages its 19th installment.
So if the rematch should happen, what should Nietes do to win the fight?
Just go punch – that simple!
In most of the rounds, Nietes have connected a lot of power punches than Fuentes, a lot of them finding their way to the challenger’s head. They staggered the aggressive Mexican down to his feet and gave Nietes a golden opportunity to come to him strong and storm him with punches en route to a knock down.
But that did not happen. After unleashing an effective one-two (we hardly remember Nietes throwing a combination other than the one-two) that hit Fuentes straight on, Nietes, surprisingly held his punches, moved to the side or backpedaled away from the staggered opponent, giving Fuentes a moment to regain his form and muster his energy to attack Nietes again. He pursued Nietes till the corner of the ropes, threw punches, while Nietes countered with a one-two, hurt his opponent a bit, held his punches, and then walked away.
What happened: Round ends, next round begins, repeat step one until step three. On and on.
The Championship Rounds: Nietes vs Fuentes
This was the frustrating scenario, with the development sometimes ending with Nietes catching more punches because of him holding his punches and pedaling away from Fuentes, especially when the championship rounds came in, where boxing fans were hoping for an exciting mano-a-mano fiesta, only to end up with a lot of clinches, and again more back pedaling, after a “very lengthy” one-two exchange.
We don’t know what the camp behind Nietes was thinking, holding the fighter arms up high where they should bow down in disgust, letting such a winnable fight fly away from the fighter’s clipped arms, and limited fists. Nietes might have forgotten he’s a world champion, one of the best in his division. If ever he fights with such a lousy and lackluster performance again, holding his punches all throughout, he should kiss his title belt goodbye as early as now.
We’ve seen you do better, Donnie, and we know you can do better. So just punch!
