NONITO “THE FILIPINO FLASH” DONAIRE JR. defends his World Boxing Organization (WBO) super-bantamweight title against Hungary’s Zsolt Bedak on April 23 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The 33-year-old Donaire (36 wins, three losses, 23 knockouts) stakes his belt against the Athens Olympian Bedak (25-1, 8 KOs), after the original prospect, rising star Evgeny Gradovich, agreed to fight Oscar Valdez instead.
Donaire got his lofty position back after the four-division champion snatched the WBO crown in an action-packed bout against Cesar Juarez last December.
The Filipino Flash is on a mission to regain his stature after he lost his featherweight belt in a brutal six-round knockout to Nicholas Walters in October 2014.
Bedak has won his last 10 fights since his 10th-round knockout against Wilfredo Vasquez Jr. in 2010. Two years later Donaire outclassed Vasquez for the vacant junior-featherweight belt in the US.
Top Rank, which handles the General Santos City native, saw the potential of a Donaire-Gradovich championship match, but the Russian boxing prodigy insisted to fight in the featherweight class rather than go well below in the 122-pound territory of Donaire.
“I’m going forward on Bedak and I think I can get it done,” Donaire’s manager, Cameron Dunkin, told boxingmirror.com.