A shocking development sends The Filipino Flash to the semifinals.
That wasn’t the script.
The first round of bantamweight titleholder Ryan Burnett’s (19-1, 9 KOs) defense and World Boxing Super Series quarterfinal against four weight world titleholder Nonito Donaire (39-5, 25 KOs) was really interesting. Burnett seemed the more skilled bantamweight, but “The Filipino Flash” had a notable size advantage and used it at times to bully Burnett a bit. It was a close opener. The Northern Irishman rebounded well with a crisp second round behind his jab, but then he returned to struggling in the third.
Nonito was able to push Ryan into the corner and tag him with repeated right hands early in round three. The defending titleholder rebounded well with a crisp one two that seemed to wobble Donaire briefly in the middle, but by the end he was eating combinations once again. At this point it looked like we were heading for a very compelling showdown.
It didn’t matter though. None of the fight did. In the fourth round, a frame that Burnett seemed to be controlling, the 26 year old came up short on a right hand. He immediately grabbed his back and fell to the canvas. There wasn’t much time left in the round and he rose, but he spent the finish of the round getting tagged along the ropes clearly physically compromised. He went back to the corner in pain seemingly with a debilitating back injury. The fight was rightfully called off by his team.
Out of no where, Nonito Donaire is once again a bantamweight titleholder. It is real unfortunate how we got here though. Nonito looked to my eye like he was capable of winning this fight anyway, but even he is clearly quite disappointed in how the end of the fight arrived. The biggest let down here is that we were robbed of what I saw a compelling fight unfolding in quite an interesting manner. Both men were fighting well and both had obvious advantages going for them in the ring. Hopefully we get a rematch after the tournament. More importantly, hopefully this was a freak incident for Burnett and not something that will hamper his life and career going forward.
Satisfying finish or not, Donaire now moves on to meet Zolani Tete in the semifinals in what will also be a unification contest.
