Simpiwe Vetyeka – IBO & WBA Champions
By Michael Amakor | May 31, 2014
Former South African Bantamweight Champion Simpiwe Vetyeka (26-3, 16KO’s) dropped a fourth round technical decision to Nonito Donaire to lose his WBA Super Featherweight title on May 31, 2014 at the Venetian Resort, in Macao, China.
The fight appeared to be even until an unintentional head butt opened up a cut over Doniare’s left eye in the very first round. There seemed nothing unusual about the cut which was patched up between rounds but which nevertheless began to bleed into Donaire’s eyes.
However despite the cut Donaire seemed to be landing the more accurate shots and he eventually found a way to drop Vetyeka to the canvas in a flash in the 4th round. Vetyaka however beat the count, appeared to be in no danger, and seemed to be getting back into the fight.
Donaire however tired precipitously, seemed in no mood to continue, sensed that he would be in for a grueling night but recognizing that he was ahead on the scorecards after the 10-8 fourth round and hastily decided he was unable to continue, the fight went to the score cards according to WBA rules and Vetyeka lost his title after the score cards were tallied up.
African Boxing wishes to voice its displeasure at the outcome of this fight because we will never know how the fight might have turned out if they fight had gotten into the championship rounds given Vetyaka’s experience and size advantage. We can only hope that Vetyaka gets a rematch as promised by the defeated looking and apologetic Donaire after the fight.
It is not clear whether Vetyeka’s IBF featherweight title was on the line as well, or whether he had relinquished it coming into this fight. We sincerely hope that he still has the IBF strap.
The HBO broadcast team comprising of Roy Jones and Jim Lampley however did not seem enthusiastic about a rematch and Larry Merchant the HBO interviewer did not really press the issue with Vetyaka or Donaire during the post fight interview as he usually would do in other similar situations.
On the other hand African boxing is disappointed that Vetyeka after his shocking victory over Chris John to unify the WBA & IBF titles and who had this great opportunity to impress and shock the world fell short like many other former African Champions yet again.
It is time for African boxers to stop relying on power and instead focus on honing their technical skills and adopt a search and destroy fighting approach so decisions are never left in the hands of the judges.
Go back to the gym.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
