WORLD Boxing Organization light flyweight champion Donnie Nietes may defend his title against Raul Garcia, twin brother of Ramon Garcia Hirales from whom he won the title by a unanimous 12-round decision at the University of St. La Salle Coliseum in Bacolod City on Oct. 8, 2011.
ALA Promotions president Michael Aldeguer, who left for the United States over the weekend, told The Standard he had proposed that Nietes defend the title against Garcia on May 21 in the Philippines and postpone the mandatory title defense against Moises Fuentes for September, possibly at the StubHub Center in Carson City, California, where ALA Promotions teamed up with ABS-CBN and The Filipino Channel for a very successful initial breakthrough into promotions in the US on Oct. 17 last year.
Aldeguer said Fernando Beltran said he had no objections to the proposal, but hadn’t yet formally agreed since they also have to secure the approval of the World Boxing Organization president Francisco “Paco” Valcarcel, who had earlier directed Nietes to face Fuentes in a mandatory title defense.
That title defense would be their third fight after Nietes demolished Fuentes on May 10, 2014, dropping him three times in the ninth round for a rousing knockout victory at the Mall of Asia Arena along Manila Bay.
In suggesting that the Nietes-Fuentes mandatory be held in the US, Aldeguer was looking at a big fight with a wider American audience.
However, he said if the proposal was disallowed, Nietes was ready to face Fuentes even in Mexico, where he defended his minimum weight title successfully on several occasions against Mexican opponents in their own hometowns.