Donaire Stops Mthalane via 6th Round TKO
Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire of the Philippines retained his International Boxing Federation flyweight world title Saturday with a sixth-round technical knockout of South African Moruti Mthalane. Referee Joe Cortez forced to stop the fight at 1:31 of the sixth after Donaire had opened a cut on the inside of Mthalane’s left eyelid.
Donaire showed his boxing skills in the first until the third round with good jobs and combination with his left and right hooks to the body and head of Mthalane. Donaire was more versatile, picking his punches when he saw openings. In the 4th round, Nonito was getting frustrated a little bit with Mthalane’s good defense with his forearms and effective offense with his good jabs that threw Donaire off balance and gave the 4th round to Mthalane. The African boxer had also a very good performance in the fifth round, outworking Donaire in close. Donaire’s face began to swell up by the sixth as he tried to change the way the fight was playing out. The fight was stopped due to a bad cut on Mthalane’s eyelid and blood on his face.
Two judges scored it 49-46 after the 5th round and the third judge scored it 48-47 for Nonito. It was this close that the crowd who wanted more action booed when referee Joe Cortez signalled that the fight was over on the advised of the ring doctor who checked Mthalane’s eye. “I threw a left when I switched up and boom that was it and I called the referee because I knew the fight would gonna be stopped because it was right on the money where the blood goes directly to the eye instead of cut on top of the eye, it was directly on the eye, like that line where nothing could fix it and there was no need to punish him, because he couldn’t see me everytime I went on his left side. Why would I punish a guy when he was worthy of it so I called the referee,” Nonito explained after the fight why he called the referee to check Mthalane’s eye.
Meanwhile, promoter Bob Arum announced that Donaire’s next fight should take place in March next year either in Macau or Manila, definitely against a Mexican. He floated the names of WBO superfly champ Fernando Montiel or Jorge Arce as possible opponents.
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