WBO orders Nietes vs. Palicte for vacant title

Naoya Inoue vacated the belt in his move to bantamweight

Naoya Inoue’s old super flyweight title will wind up in Filipino hands later this year, as the WBO has ordered three-division champion Donnie Nietes to face countryman Aston Palicte for the belt in Nietes’ super flyweight debut.

Yes, my title is pretty much word-for-word the same as The Ring’s, but that was the most succinct way to put it.

Palicte (24-2, 20 KO) is 14-1 since a 2012 stoppage loss to Romnick Magos, the only misstep a questionable split decision loss to Junior Granados in hostile territory. He’s promoted by Roy Jones Jr. and is eight years younger than the well-traveled Nietes (41-1-4, 23 KO), who is coming off a beatdown win over Juan Carlos Reveco.

An interesting factoid The Ring mentions: the last all-Filipino world title fight was Pancho Villa vs. Clever Sencio in 1925, but 2018 already has two of them in the works, this and the May 26th bout between fellow super flyweights Jerwin Ancajas and Jonas Sultan.