Nonito Donaire bucked an early cut over his left eye to capture the WBA featherweight title with a unanimous technical decision win over Simpiwe Vetyeka on Saturday in Macau.

“Maraming salamat sa lahat ng nandito. Pasensya na po,” said Donaire, adding his regrets that he wasn’t able to give Filipino fans in the venue “a proper fight.”

Donaire caught a bad break late in the first round after suffering a cut in a clash of heads. However, since the referee did not rule a headbutt as the cause of the cut, the Filipino Flash remained in danger of losing the fight if it had to be stopped because of the bleeding.

The second round remained precarious for Donaire as he clashed heads again with Vetyeka a couple of times.

Instead of playing safe, Donaire fought like a wounded tiger. He rocked Vetyeka in the third round, sending the South African champion off balanced. Vetyeka had to hold on to the ropes to stay on his feet, but was not called for a knockdown.

Donaire continued the onslaught in the fourth round, sending his foe to the canvas with a left hook. He continued to stalk Vetyeka throughout the round, with the champion barely surviving.

But the cut was deemed by technical officials at ringside to be too much for Donaire to continue at the beginning of the fifth round. They also ruled the cut to be caused by a clash of heads in the first round.

Because four rounds had been completed, the fight was halted and went to the scorecards with Donaire winning 49-46 in all three cards.

But even the winner wasn’t too happy with how the match turned out.

“I wanna give them that rematch,” said Donaire.

Donaire improved his record to 33-2 with 21 knockouts a match after he bounced back from a loss to Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux in April 2013. He knocked out Armenian southpaw Vic Darchinyan in November of 2013.

Vetyeka fell to 26-3 with 16 knockouts.

In another bout, unbeaten Russian Evgeny Gradovich, nicknamed the Mexican Russian, survived all 12 rounds of toe-to-toe action against Alexander Miskirtchian of Belgium, and retained his IBF Featherweight Championship title.

Gradovich improved to 19-0, while Jamaica’s unbeaten Nicholas Walters decisively knocked out Darchinyan in the fifth round, improving his record to 24-0 with 20 knockouts.

On the same card, undefeated Chinese boxer Yang Ik readily took out Indonesia’s Geisler Ap with a right hook following a flurry of punches in two minutes and 24 seconds of the opening round, improving to 14-0.*AFP

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