Edito Villamor
CDN file photo
Cebu City, Philippines – Good things happen when one follows the game plan to perfection.
For Donnie Nietes, it gave him the distinction of being among the country’s boxing greats.
The 36-year-old Nietes from Murcia, Negros Occidental became a four-division world champion after bagging the World Boxing Organization (WBO) super flyweight world champion following a split-decision win over Japan’s Kazuto Ioka at the Wynn Palace Cotai, Macao on Monday night, December 31.
ALA Boxing Gym trainer Edito Villamor said the win could be credited to Nietes’ dedication in training.
“Great performance ni Donnie. Nabuhat jud niya ang gibuhat sa training,” said Villamor in a chat with Cebu Daily News late Monday night.
(Great performance by Donnie. He really followed what we prepared during training.)
Nietes, the Philippines’ longest reigning world boxing champion, now joins the ranks of Manny Pacquiao and Nonito Donaire Jr. as the only Filipino boxers who have won titles in four weight divisions. His other belts were from the mini-flyweight, junior-flyweight, and flyweight divisions.
Nietes
Nietes improved his record to 42-1-5 (win-loss-draw).
Although Nietes’ win was satisfying for Villamor, he said that their camp believed it should have been a unanimous-decision win.
“Ok ra at least we won. But sa among tanaw unanimous,” said Villamor.
(It is okay, at least we won. But we saw it as a unanimous win.)
Judges scored the match 118-110, for Nietes, 116-112 for Ioka and 116-112 for Nietes.
Careful planning
While Nietes achieved his goal, he denied Ioka from becoming the first four-division world champion from Japan.
Villamor said that during training, his team carefully studied the way the young Japanese pug fought. They had to come up with something that’ll get Ioka off his usual style.
“Ang duwa ni Ioka mao ang gi studiohan pag ayo kung unsa angay buhaton ni Donnie para maguba ang iyang style,” narrated Villamor.
(We carefully studied the way Ioka fights so we would know what Donnie needs to do to put him off his style.)