Kazuto Ioka dominates aging Donnie Nietes to retain WBO world title

Kazuto Ioka made a successful defense of his WBO world super flyweight title following a lopsided unanimous decision over aging former four-division champion Donnie Nietes this Wednesday evening at the Ota-City General Gymnasium in Japan.

Nietes was the aggressor in the early going as Ioka boxed in circles throwing jabs to the head and body. The Filipino seemed reactive to everything Ioka does which allowed the latter to land a punch here and there.

Ioka was on the receiving end of Nietes' power punches in round two and then was more active with his jab the following round. Ioka moved forward, landing shots at Nietes while the latter fired back with his patented right hand.

Ioka cleanly landed his shots at Nietes in round 5, and the latter was not able to land anything back until the dying seconds of the stanza. In round 7, Nietes absorbed just about every punch that the Japanese threw at him.

Nietes came alive in round 9 and landed some good shots after a long while though it never seemed to bother Ioka. The Japanese champion had Nietes bleeding from the side of his left eye in round 10 which he continuously targeted until round 11.

Nietes looked every bit of his 40 years of his age for most of the contest and was visually spent in the twelfth and final round which allowed Ioka to comfortably throw and land his punches at the Filipino.

Ioka was declared after twelve rounds of action, improving his record to 29-2 with 15 knockouts while Nietes dropped to 43-2-6 with 23 knockouts.

The two had previously fought in 2018 where Nietes won via split decision.

—JMB, GMA News