MANILA – Negrense boxers Donnie Nietes and Aston Palicte will be fighting for the vacant WBO world super flyweight belt on Sept. 9 at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
The world title clash was included among the main cards in the “Superfly 3” fight card headlined by the battle between Mexican Juan Francisco Estrada and Kazuto Ioka.
The Nietes-Palicte world title match was originally scheduled for August 18 in Cebu City but it was moved to the “Superfly” card of HBO following negotiations with promoter Tom Loeffler and ALA Boxing Promotions’ Michael Aldeguer.
“The Nietes-Palicte match is definitely one of the fights we want to have on Superfly 3,” Loeffler said in an interview with ESPN. “Donnie has a great win in Superfly 2 so it makes sense to bring him back.”
Nietes said he was happy to be given another opportunity to fight in the United States following his sensational victory over Juan Carlos Reveco last February in “Superfly 2.”
“This is the point of being a professional boxer, to fight in the United States on a big event like HBO,” Nietes said in an interview. “Hopefully, this will not be my last fight there.”
This was the second All-Filipino world championship clash after 93 years aside from IBF junior bantamweight champion Jerwin Ancajas’ successful title defense against Jonas Sultan on May 26.
The Murcia native Nietes is parading an impressive 41-1-4 win-loss-draw ring record with 23 stoppage wins, while the Bago City native Palicte has 24-2-0 card with 20 knockout victories./PN
