Walters stops Donaire in Round 6

"I invited him into me. It's like fishing," Walters said. "I gave him the bait and I reeled him in. But he is a great fighter and a great person."

It was only the second time in his career that Donaire had been knocked down. The first time came the third round.

"I have never seen a featherweight with as much power as Walters," said Top Rank's Bob Arum, Walters' co-promoter with Leon Margules of Warriors Boxing. "I've seen featherweights with a lot of power but nothing with the concussive power this kid has. The one question I had was could he take a punch and he proved he could."

Late in the third round, Walters landed a flush right uppercut and dropped Donaire, whose face was beginning to swell and turn red, to a knee. It was the first time Donaire has been knocked down in his career. But he rose quickly, and they spent the final several seconds throwing down in a toe-to-toe exchange that had the crowd going wild.

"We worked hard for this victory knowing we were fighting Donaire," Walters said. "Donaire is a super great champion. I know I have to respect him and that's what I did. He caught me with a few shots. He has power and speed but I enjoyed the fight. I thank Donaire for giving me the opportunity."

By the fourth round, Donaire's black and blue right eye was beginning to swell and he was cut over the left eye.

Donaire's one big moment was in the second round when he hurt Walters, who owned a secondary featherweight belt but now assumes Donaire's main title, and nearly dropped him with a left hook right at the bell to end the round. It was the kind of shot that Donaire used to knock guys out at the lower weights.

"I got a little bit confident and he caught me with a good shot. Boom! I recuperated from the shot but it was a very good shot," Walters said. "He caught me clean. But I had a job to do and I got it done."

Donaire (33-3, 21 KOs), 31, "The Filipino Flash" from San Leandro, California, and Walters, (25-0, 21 KOs), 28, of Jamaica, embraced in the ring after the fight, and Walters told him that he was one of his favorite fighters.

Donaire made no excuses for the loss.

"I'm sorry I fell short tonight of my goal," Donaire said. "He's an amazing fighter, amazing champion, an amazing guy. I was at my best. I never trained this hard. I take nothing away from Nicholas Walters. He came out as tough as I thought he would be. The size he had over me I couldn't deal with. He overwhelmed and knocked the s--- out of me."

Donaire, making his first title defense, has won titles in four weight classes -- flyweight, bantamweight, junior featherweight and featherweight -- and a fifth if his interim belt at junior bantamweight is included. But he sounded as though retirement might beckon.

"I've got to go back to the drawing board. I know I can't compete with guys like Walters," Donaire said. "I succumbed to size and overwhelming aura inside the ring. He beat the s--- out of me."

Rodriguez outpoints Augustama

Light heavyweight Edwin Rodriguez (25-1, 16 KOs) of Worcester, Massachusetts, rolled to a near-shutout decision against Azea Augustama (17-2, 9 KOs) of Hollywood, Florida, winning 100-90 on two scorecards and 99-91 on the third.

Rodriguez was returning from the worst performance of his career last November, when he failed to make the 168-pound super middleweight limit for a world title shot against Andre Ward and then lost badly by lopsided decision the next night.

Despite the 11-month layoff and moving into a new weight division, Rodriguez looked fairly sharp. He popped Augustama with shots from both hands throughout the fight and clearly frustrated him. After a difficult fourth round, Augustama walked back to his corner with an obvious look of resignation on his face and things did not get any better for him.

Augustama managed to land a few hard right hands to the head here and there, but Rodriguez never seemed hurt.

• Middleweight Abie Han (23-1, 14 KOs) of El Paso, Texas, won a surprising majority decision against Marcos Reyes (32-1, 24 KOs) of Mexico, who appeared to get the better of Han throughout the high-contact fight. But in the end, two judges scored it 97-91 for and the third had it 94-94.

Han had taken quite a bit of punishment when Reyes put together a series of punches late in the eighth round and dropped him to a knee. Reyes continued to pound him for the last few seconds of the round, including nailing him with a body shot just after the bell. Han went down, but it was not counted as an official knockdown because it was an unintentional foul after the bell.

Han extended his winning streak to four in a row since Glen Tapia stopped him in a slugfest on ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights" in July 2013. Reyes, who had not lost since dropping a 10-round decision in 2010, saw his 19-fight winning streak end.

• East Los Angeles junior welterweight Jaime Ocegueda (9-0, 6 KOs) rallied to knock out Moris Rodriguez (6-4-1, 3 KOs) of Sacramento with 29 seconds left in the sixth and final round. Rodriguez dropped Ocegueda in the fifth round and appeared in control before Ocegueda knocked him down with a combination late in the sixth round. Rodriguez made it to his feet and was allowed to continue despite being in bad shape and Ocegueda nailed him with a another flurry of punches before the fight was called off.

• Lightweight Ruslan Madiyev (1-0) of Kazakhstan rolled to a shutout four-round decision against Oscar Rojas (0-1) of Salinas, California, in the pro debut for both fighters. Madiyev dropped Rojas with a left-right combination in the first round and nearly had him out late in the third round after delivering a beating.

• Los Angeles featherweight Walter Sarnoi (16-4, 10 KOs) won a spirited decision against Mexico's Sergio Najera (8-16-2, 2 KOs) in the opening bout of the card, winning 40-36, 40-36 and 39-36. Najera lost a point for a low blow in the third round.