Nicholas Walters may not have fought too many high-class opponents before tonight, but he proved he belongs on the big stage with a brutal right hand knockout of the former flyweight, super flyweight, bantamweight, super bantamweight, and until a few minutes ago, the WBA ‘Super’ featherweight champion Nonito Donaire.
The bout started as a shoot-out, with Nonito getting the better of the exchanges and appearing to badly hurt the Jamaican at the end of the second round.
In the next round Walters returned the favour, dropping Donaire with a short right uppercut. After that, Donaire got increasingly sloppy with his offence, and seemed eager to get rid of Walters as quickly as possible.
For anyone used to seeing classy counter punching and pinpoint sniping displays from ‘The Filipino Flash’, it was clear to see something wasn’t quite right with Donaire. Walters showed good reflexive defence and poise that belied his relative inexperience in the pro ranks, and his perseverance paid off in the sixth round as Nonito wildly threw himself towards Walters and got clobbered with a heavy right hand.
Donaire was up off the deck before ten, but by all intents and purposes he was knocked out, and the bout was wisely called off before he could take any further punishment.
Donaire took the loss with good graces. He didn’t say he was going to retire, but complimented the victor for being an amazing fighter and “beat(ing) the sh** out of me”.
Boxing aficionados have felt for some time that Donaire has been on the slide, and this surely will push him closer to retirement, even though he insisted that wasn’t the case.
For Nicholas Walters it is believed (as per Bob Arum this week) that a title unification bout with two-time Olympic Gold medalist and current WBO featherweight champion with Vasyl Lomachenko is in the offering, should Lomachenko get through his next fight with Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo in November.