At the Cebu City Sports Complex, Philippines, Donaire vs Bedak was a short-lived mismatch. Nonito Donaire took care of business inside three rounds, successfully defending his WBO title in the process. Donaire, who captured his piece of the Junior Featherweight crown in a life-and-death clash with Cesar Juarez last December, handled this task with far less problems. Or, to be more detailed, basically none. Donaire now improves to 37 wins, 3 defeats, 24 knockouts, while Zsolt Bedak drops to 25 wins, 2 defeats, 8 knockouts.
Donaire knocked down Bedak three times en route to a stoppage victory, twice in the 2nd courtesy of his money punch: the left-hook. With Donaire already bossing the action and doing serious damage to Zsolt, who really had no business being in this championship meeting, he maintained his peaking aggression going into the 3rd.
Donaire unleashed more heavy blows, soon dropping his man for the third and final time with a right hand. Bedak beat the count, but the referee decided he’d witnessed enough unanswered violence for one night. It was a good call but, yeah…this really was a dud. And with not much else to really touch on here, let’s all just hope Donaire’s upcoming defenses are a little more worthwhile than this. If anything, this fight (maybe you could call it a tune-up of sorts) has done its job in rebuilding Donaire’s confidence.
Anyway, there’s plenty of notable matchups out there for ol’ Donaire if he’s still hungry for them. Guillermo Rigondeaux, Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg are the toughest of those challenges, but the 122-pound division is pretty deep in general right now (see Boxing Base’s World Top 10 Junior Featherweights). Donaire of course already went twelve rounds with Rigondeaux back in 2013, dropping the Cuban standout but landing on the wrong side of a Unanimous Decision.
So what say you, fight fans? What’s your take on Donaire vs Bedak? Where does Nonito Donaire go from here? And does he still have the tools to hang at top-level?
