MANILA – Nonito Donaire was back as world champion after a fifth-round stoppage victory over the injured Ryan Burnett on Sunday at the SSE Hyrdo in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Filipino fighter consequently captured Burnett’s WBA world bantamweight title and the WBC Diamond bantamweight belt – and tarnished the record of his foe from Northern Ireland.
In addition, Donaire also moved on to the next phase of the World Boxing Super Series – he will take on WBO bantamweight champion Zolani Tete of South Africa next year.
While the outcome did not turn out the way anyone wanted to see happen, it was still a bounce-back win for Donaire after a unanimous-decision loss to Carl Frampton in their interim WBO featherweight title bout in April.
Both fighters were into a tight battle in the first three rounds until Burnett sustained a back injury midway in the fourth round when he attempted a long right and took a knee.
Burnett then went down hard on the floor in excruciating pain but was still able to finish the round – despite Donaire unloading volume punches in an attempt to finish off the former.
For the fifth round, Burnett refused to come out of his corner due to injury, effectively handing the technical-stoppage victory to Donaire. The former was later stretched off from the ring.
“Burnett was an amazing fighter,” Donaire said. “It didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but a win is a win. I fought like the bigger guy in there, and I was also able to box.”
“I felt strong and I came in with power because I was the bigger guy. Age ain’t nothing but a number,” the 35-year-old added.
Donaire moved up to a 39-5-0 win-loss-draw, including 25 knockout wins, while Burnett went down to 19-1-0 (nine KOs)./PN
