Donaire vs roughhousing opponent, inept referee

It wasn’t the best way to win, but it goes into the record books as Nonito Donaire’s sixth world title in four different weight divisions. By defeating defending titlist Simpewe Vetyeka of South Africa via a fifth round technical decision on Saturday evening in Macau, “The Filipino Flash’s “ record is now 32-2, 21 KOs). Vetyeka went down to 26-3, 16 KOs.

Although Donaire himself was not happy with the victory, even sounding apologetic, according to Larry Merchant during the post interview atop the ring, there was widespread satisfaction with his performance. There were, however, loud protests over the failure of the third man in the ring, Luis Pabon to control the WBA featherweight title fight.

Writer Lem Satterfield wrote, “Donaire … scored a knockdown in (round four) and survived head butts and poor officiating by referee Luis Pabon. The fight went to the judges’ scorecards after Pabon halted the fight with Donaire badly cut over his left eye, the result of an apparent head-butt. Donaire also took a knee in (round one) after suffering the cut and absorbing a shot at the back of the head.”

Another writer, Ryan Songalla, seemed to agree with Satterfield’s account: ”Donaire overcame an accidental head-butt cut that left him bleeding from his left eye in (round one) to defeat  Vetyeka by a fifth-round technical decision. The fight was stopped a second into (round five) by (Pabon), with all three judges turning in the score, 49-46, scoring the fifth round, 10-10.”  The scores, prior to the fifth round, meant that Donaire won three out of four rounds, with the fourth  won obviously by Donaire, 10-8, by virtue of knocking down the lanky South African.  

While Satterfield and Rongalla agree that the accidental head-butt caused the stoppage, Chris Williams dissented, and even hinted at some dark motive in the referee’s decision.  Williams’s lead paragraph: “Donaire defeated WBA super world featherweight champion Vetyeka by a very controversial four round technical decision….Donaire suffered a cut in the first round from what appeared to be a right hand that clipped him while he was trying to move out of range. Donaire complained that he couldn’t see out of the cut and this eventually resulted in the fight being stopped.

“They said it was from a head-butt. However, there was no clash of heads. Instead of a head clash, Donaire was nailed by a right hand on his left eye and this caused him to go down. In slow motion replay it shows that Donaire was cut from a punch rather than a head clash, so the referee blew the call in saying it was from a head clash. If he had ruled it correctly then Vetyeka would have won the fight because Donaire wouldn’t have been able to continue. So in other words, Vetyeka got jobbed in this fight.”

Williams apparently felt he was (and not Vetyeka) fighting Donaire when he wrote, “Donaire knocked Vetyeka down with a left hook in the fourth round. The shot caught Vetyeka when he was bent forward to where he didn’t see the shot. However, he wasn’t hurt from the punch and he continued to fight back.”

At this point Williams hints at some conspiracy, “What’s interesting about this fight is that it was allowed to go long enough for it to be an official fight when it could have been stopped in the second or third rounds. But instead (it) was permitted to go just long enough for it to be official so that a decision could be rendered.”

Williams ends his plug for Vetyeka, “The way the fight was going, I think Vetyeka was going to beat Donaire because he had no problems landing his shots and he seemed the more comfortable fighter in there. Donaire was landing an occasional big shot, but he was getting nailed a lot and it just looked like it was only going to be a matter of time before Vetyeka got to Donaire.”

So much for Williams. Let’s look at Pabon. According to boxrec.com, Pabon, a Puerto Rican, has been a professional boxing referee since 1993. For some reason, however, Pabon has been doing his refereeing chores in Puerto Rico, Panama, UK and Russia. He has never been a referee in fights of boxing’s super elite and has never been the third man in the ring in boxing hotbeds like Las Vegas, New York, Texas and California.  His refereeing record is enough to fill at least six pages of ordinary typing paper.

He has had his share of controversy having been chastised for allegedly stopping prematurely the fight between Juan Manuel Lopez and Daniel Ponce de Leon for the vacant WBO international super featherweight title on March 15, 2014 in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.

Gabriel Cordero, writing for fightnews.com, asked Pabon for his side: “Some say de Leon could have continued but he didn’t go down in the best way. Ponce was stumbling, woozy and getting hammered… Before criticizing the performance of the referee in this situation, remember that we are there to protect the life of the boxer, not to get caught in the emotions of the fight.”

One possible opponent of Donaire in his next fight is Russian Evgeny Gradovich (19-0, 9 KOs). Gradovich is a former member of the Russian national boxing team. We saw Gradovich take out Billy Dib in nine rounds in Macau in November 2013 in the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios match up. We were impressed by the Russian who, together with several other talented fighters, makes the featherweight division one of the most exciting in boxing.