Donaire's KO win over Montiel earns RingTV, ESPN.com awards

Nonito Donaire's devastating second-round destruction of Fernando Montiel wouldn't go unnoticed as 2011 is about to end. Both ESPN and RingTV.com acknowledge the epic triumph of the "Filipino Flash" over Montiel as the run away choice for the Knockout of the Year award. Donaire, 28, sent Montiel on all four corners with a spectacular left hook in their February 19 unification bout at the Mandalay Bay Resort Hotel and Casion for the World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight titles. Despite wobbly legs, Montiel managed to get up, and to the surprise by many, was allowed by referee Russell Mora to continue fighting. Donaire went for the kill, pounding the tough Mexican with another left, followed by a right before Mora mercifully stepped in to stop the carnage. Official time was two minutes and 25 seconds of the second round. Donaire's sensational victory got a whopping 78.1 percent votes from RingTV.com readers who were polled as to which they considered as 201's KO of the Year. A far second was Nobuhiro Ishida's first-round stoppage of the heavily favored James Kirkland in their April light-middleweight bout, which received 9.2 percent of the votes, followed by Lucia Bute's fourth-round KO of Jean Paul Mendy (4.6 percent) in their super-middleweight title bout held in Bucharest, Romania on July 9. Dan Rafael, ESPN's long-time boxing writer and columnist, also chose Donaire’s demolition of Montiel on top of his KO of the Year list. "He (Donaire) didn’t just score any old knockout to seize those belts. Donaire orchestrated a sensational one, blowing Montiel away for the 2011 ESPN.com knockout of the year," Rafael wrote on ESPN boxing. Earning runner-up honor in Rafael's yearly catalogue of boxing's best was Floyd Mayweather Jr's. controversial fourth-round KO of Victor Ortiz last September to seize the WBC welterweight crown, Robert Helenius' ninth-round flattening of Samuel Peters in their April 9 heavyweight match in Halle, Germany, and yes, Bute's win over Mendy. Sports Illustrated earlier also picked Donaire's annihilation of Montiel as its KO of the Year. — JVP, GMA News