By REYNALD MAGALLON
Father time seemed to have finally caught up with Nonito Donaire Jr.
The Filipino Flash was outmatched and outsmarted by a younger and quicker Alexandro Santiago who came away with a unanimous decision victory to wrest the vacant WBC bantamweight belt on Sunday, July 30 (Manila time) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The loss denied the 40-year-old Donaire a piece of history as his bid to become the oldest bantamweight champion ended at the hands of 27-year-old Santiago who wore down the Filipino champion with sharp jabs and vicious shots to the body.
Donaire did hold his ground, dragging the 12-round bout to its final seconds with the judges, ultimately, giving the victory to the much busier Mexican with a 115-113, 116-112, 116-112 scorecard.
Donaire dropped to a 42-8 record after suffering his second-straight defeat following a second-round TKO loss to Naoya Inoue in 2022 while Santiago improved to 28-3-5, winning the first title of his career.
Santiago tried to dictate the tempo in the early rounds with jabs and left hooks although Donaire would not let the younger counterpart easily control the pace, coming back with his own clean hits including a left that hurt Santiago in the third round.
Donaire, however, couldn’t take full advantage of the strong third round showing and the cut above Santiago’s left eyes due to an accidental head clash with the Mexican picking up the pace with swift combinations and heavy body shots.
The Mexican continued to push forward and landed serious combinations before connecting on an uppercut and a left hook to end the eighth round.
Trailing the scorecards, Donaire tried to set up and unload a big right but just couldn’t land it with the quicker Santiago dodging and parrying the jabs all while landing a couple more combinations and big hooks to the body of the already gassed Filipino champion.
