Nonito Donaire elevated himself to superstar status with a spectacular second round TKO of WBC/WBO bantamweight champ Fernando Montiel. Donaire countered a Montiel right with one of the best left hooks you'll ever see. Montiel quivered on the canvas briefly and seemed certain to be counted out. He somehow made it to his feet and referee Russell Mora somehow saw fit to let the fight continue. However, two more punches from Donaire were enough to convince Mora to jump in to wave off the bout -- with Montiel amazingly still on his feet.
The win moves Donaire into the conversation of number three pound-for-pound fighter in the world behind Filipino countryman Manny Pacquiao and the inactive Floyd Mayweather Jr..
Up next for Donaire could be a unification bout with either the winner of the upcoming Joseph Agbeko-Abner Mares fight (IBF belt) or Anselmo Moreno (WBA belt).
On the undercard, welterweight Mike Jones remained undefeated with a twelve round unanimous decision over a bloodied but resilient Jesus Soto-Karass. Scores were 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113.
Comments
That was the best impact punch I’ve seen in a long time. Martinez has some company in the discussion for KO of the year. It’s only February too!
The punch looked like a car wreck on Montiel’s face. Awesome.
My Bad the Martinez KO over Williams was November of last year… My how time goes by!
Excellent matchup. Would have liked to have seen the fight go a little longer, but can’t argue with the fact that it was an exciting 2 rounds. Can’t wait to see Donaire fight again.
Donaire has stength, speed and intelligence. He just seemed the larger and stronger fighter from the beginning. His destruction of Montiel was sudden and lethal. One could not help but wonder if Donaire is the next Manny Pacquiao. One also hopes that Montiel was not badly injured.
Donaire have one fight KOed Montiel and everybody pressume that he is a super star. He needs to fight a few good fighters before que could be consider in the list of pound-by-pound