by Cliff Rold
Was Donnie Nietes win over Ramon Garcia, rendered a unanimous verdict on points, clean? Team Garcia doesn’t seem to think so.
Miguel Rivera, at BoxingScene, quotes Garcia’s trainer stating, “We will make a request to the WBO to review the video of the fight in order to make an evaluation and give us justice. We want a rematch. (Garcia) deserves a direct rematch. Ramon won this fight and these judges robbed it from him.”
Garcia, from Mexico, was on the road in the Philippines for his first defense of the full WBO 108 lb. honors (he was previously an interim champion). Nietes picked up his second belt in his second weight class (and, literally, boxing’s second class up from the bottom of the scale). The final scores came in at 115-113, 117-111 and 118-110.
One of these is not like the others. Reports of the fight indicate 115-113 as more fair than the other two scores, but nothing beyond the Garcia camp yet indicates a genuinely wrong decision. Due to the fight not airing yet in the U.S., an opinion on the verdict won’t be rendered.
And, accordingly, there will be no going to the report card. Granted the full fight shows up on YouTube sometime soon, look for post-fight thoughts in the near future. For now, the verdict is respected as correct.
Report Card Picks 2011: 33-12
Ratings Update
Welterweight: The stoppage was far too quick but Kell Brook looked exceptional in is victory over Rafal Jackiewicz and moves up a bit in the ratings of the hollow 147 lb. class. Brook increasingly looks like he might be the best British Welterweight since Lloyd Honeyghan.
Jr. Bantamweight: Rodrigo Guerrero and Raul Martinez were giving fans a heck of a fight before an accidental butt sent matters to the cards. It’s enough to get Guerrero into the top ten, keep Martinez beneath him, and send Yato Sato into the invisibly eleventh spot.
Jr. Flyweight: Nietes jumps up from tenth to the middle of the 108 lb. pack. Everyone else drops one slot, including Garcia.
The weekend results and more are reflected a page away.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com