Omori and Tokunaga score stoppage wins to retain Japanese titles

9/16/2015

Kyoto, Japan
Today saw Japanese fans turn their attention away from the usual boxing hotspots of Tokyo and Osaka and instead focus on Kyoto which hosted a couple of Japanese title fights which saw the fighters not only trading blows for the title but also for regional bragging rights.

The main event of the show was the second of the shows title bouts and saw the world ranked Shohei Omori (15-0, 10) successfully defend his Bantamweight title for the first time with a dominant 6th round TKO win against former 2-time world title challenger Hirofumi Mukai (11-4-2, 1). From the opening bell it seemed that Omori was too big and too strong for his challenger, who never seemed to be able to feel at ease. Omroi's domination was made more evident in round 3, when he dropped Mukai for the first time. Mukai was again down the following round as Omori landed a devastating body shot, tough his sloppy assault allowed Mukai to see out the round, and mount something of a comeback in round 5. Despite Mukai stemming the tide slightly he was unable to survive the 6th round when the referee was forced to save him.

Although the performance was sloppy from Omori the youngster seemed to accept that the fight was a learning experience and that he would look to defend his title again before chasing a world title fight. Incidentally Mukai had previously taken Super Flyweight destroyer Srisaket Sor Rungvisai 9 rounds so in comparison this is an incredible result for Omori.

In the other title fight Japanese Lightweight champion Kota Tokunaga (15-2, 11) stopped his good friend Yuhei Suzuki (16-5, 12) in the 10th round to keep a grasp on title and pull out a truly fantastic come-from-behind win. Through the first half of the fight it was Suzuki in charge, with two judges having it 50-46 after 5 rounds. From then on however Tokunaga moved up a gear and the final 3 rounds were a fantastic charge from the champion who eventually saw off Suzuki with just 70 seconds left. Despite the win, which secured his first defense of the title, Tokunaga has perhaps given away his gameplan for the future with this bout seeing him start slowly, as he did last time out, and maybe future opponents will see that in future bouts. Whilst the champion is clearly a long way from a world title fight he will develop a a great fan base with performances like this.

Not only did both champions record their first defenses but they are both stablemates at Woz boxing, a gym that really appears to have had a defining year in 2015 and will be hoping to see their success continue into 2016.

As well as the two title bouts the card featured a trio of under-card bouts. One of those was a female bout which saw Tamao Ozawa (9-2, 2) score a decision win over Filipino visitor Carleans Rivas (4-3-3). This was Ozawa's 3rd successive win since she was stopped by Kai Johnson in March 2014.

Another of the under-card bouts saw light punching 20 year old Shun Kosaka (10-2, 1) score his first stoppage win as he took care of Thailand's Petchmai Sor Praithong (0-5) in the 5th of 8 scheduled rounds.

The remaining bout was a 4 rounder which saw the debuting Ryotaro Motohashi (1-0, 1) defeat Ryuichiro Okada (0-2) with a majority decision.

(Image courtesy of boxingnews.jp)

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Nonaka retains title, Mukai over-comes Tomiyama and Hosokawa continues comeback run!

4/21/2015

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Firstly we need to apologise for getting these results late, the JBC have unfortunately not updated their results in the last few days leaving us all, ourselves and boxrec among others, in the dark. Hopefully they will manage to post the official results in the coming days

Osaka, Japan
The biggest show this past Sunday was at the Sumiyoshi Ward Center in Osaka. The card wasn't a long one but it was an intriguing one with several bouts of note on it including a Japanese title fight between two world ranked fighters and a bout between two former world title challengers each fighting for their career.

We'll begin with the title fight which saw Yuki Nonaka (27-8-3, 9) successfully retain his Japanese Light Middleweight title with a very competitively fought split decision draw against former champion Takayuki Hosokawa (26-10-4, 9). The bout was a nip and tuck affair through out with Nonaka having a close lead at the mid way point. The second half of the fight saw Hosokawa fighting back though not quite doing enough to reclaim a title he vacated last year after illness. Following he bout both spoke of a rematch and given the result it would make a lot of sense to have that later this year.

In one of the supporting bouts we saw former 2-time world title challenger Hirofumi Mukai (11-3-2, 1) manage to out point fellow former world title challenger Konosuke Tomiyama (24-8-1, 8). Mukai got his jab going from early in the bout and seemed to be the clear winner, despite a few competitive rounds. Sadly for Tomiyama this defeat was his 3rd in 4 bouts and it's hard to see where he goes from here. As for Mukai this was a good step forward but he's still a long way from being a title contender, even domestically.

A second supporting bout saw former OPBF and Japanese title challenger Valentine Hosokawa (19-4-3, 9) take a well earned decision victory over the heavy handed but limited Jumbo Oda Nobunaga Shoten Petagine (9-3, 7). This was Hosokawa's third win since being stopped by Min Wook Kim in an OPBF title bout back in August 2013, as for Petagine this was a second loss in 3 bouts.

In a 6 rounder fans saw Tom Yankun Tsukamoto (6-4-1, 2) score a rare stoppage over the fragile Yuta Matsuda (9-12-2, 4). This was Matsuda's 10 stoppage loss and he lasted less than 2 rounds here.

In a 4 rounder fans saw Masahiro Sakamoto (2-0, 1) score his first stoppage as he over-came Yoshihisa Inoue (2-4, 1) in the final minute of their scheduled 4 rounder.

(Image courtesy of boxingnews.jp)

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Omori and Tokunaga score stoppage wins to retain Japanese titles

Nonaka retains title, Mukai over-comes Tomiyama and Hosokawa continues comeback run!

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