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Nonito Donaire lands co-feature slot on HBO beneath Gennady Golovkin

Nonito Donaire will defend his WBA featherweight title against Nicholas Walters on Oct. 18 in Carson, Calif. (Chris Farina/Top Rank)

When promoter Tom Loeffler announced last week that middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin would make his debut on the West Coast by fighting Marco Antonio Rubio at the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., on Oct. 18, he promised that a solid co-feature would open the HBO broadcast.

On Wednesday, he delivered.

Loeffler told Yahoo Sports that the show will open with a dandy featherweight bout between WBA champion Nonito Donaire and hard-hitting Nicholas Walters.

Walters is 24-0 with 20 knockouts and is coming off a dominant victory over Vic Darchinyan on May 31, in Macau. Walters knocked Darchinyan down twice before knocking him out in the fifth round of that bout.

That bout preceded Donaire's technical decision victory over Simpiwe Vetyeka.

"We were committed to making this a strong show and this is a solid fight to get things started [on TV]," Loeffler said. "HBO really liked this fight and we agreed."

Donaire, the 2012 Fighter of the Year, is 33-2 with 21 knockouts. Walters has scored four knockouts in a row and in 10 of his last 11 bouts.