Teerachai successful in PABA title defense. Odaira claims Japanese title

Although boxing has been somewhat limited this week, we've been looking forward to this weekend which has numerous bouts of interest spread around the world.

Bangkok, Thailand
For us the action, as it often does on a Friday, kicked off in Thailand with Channel 7 doing their usual job of televising a live Thai card. After last weeks issues with Thai Channel 7, cutting out in the middle of a title fight, we were all hoping that we'd get completed fights this week. Thankfully we did, albeit a short lived titled fight on as the talented Teerachai Kratingdaenggym (24-0, 18) swiftly took care of his Mexican Fernando Castaneda (21-8, 14). We had expected Teerachai to be forced to work hard to defend his PABA Welterweight title, but the Thai was simply too strong and too powerful. He used his thunderous power, and great 1-2, to finish off Castaneda inside a round as he further strengthened his claim for a world title fight.

As well as the title bout we had a number of other televised contests.

The broadcast began with an undercard bout fought in the Light Flyweight division. We believe the bout saw Kwanthai Sithmorseng (44-2-1, 23) scoring a 4th round TKO over the very over-matched Safwan Lombok (1-22-1) who had been down in the opening round and was unable to cope with the educated pressure of the Thai fighter.

After a break in the televised card to show, what we believe was news, the action continued and saw another mismatch as a Chatpetch Sithmorseng (6-3, 2) dropped Alwi Alhabsyi (13-21-3, 3) numerous times en route to a 5th round stoppage. Although the bout was a mismatch the finish was world class with a perfectly timed uppercut connecting on the face of the hapless opponent who was unfortunate to run into a man several levels above himself.

A fourth bout was also televised, at we believe a contracted 114lbs. This bout saw an over-confident Inthanon Sithchamuang (20-6, 11) defeating the very poor Thaminkhao Sor Tharnthip (3-8-1, 2). Fortunately for the Thai he was allowed to be overly-confident and was let off with numerous mistakes as his opponent was sadly under-qualified to test him and was stopped in the 3rd round. Oddly we believe that there was some form of a PABA opportunity up for grabs in this bout despite it being fought at the unusual 114lb weight limit.

The televised show finished with a fifth bout, this time fought at 108lbs with again some sort of PABA affiliation to the contest. The bout was one of the most competitive on the card, for what that's worth, though as with the previous 4 contests the winner was clear from the first round as the men were at completely different levels. The unbeaten Stamp Kiatniwat (6-0, 3) who took a 4th round TKO, was in control through out though it was nice to see a spirited effort from the Dawut Manoproonroj (0-1), who was apparently making his debut,

Tokyo, Japan
In the Korakuen Hall, holy ground of Japanese boxing, we had a Japanese national title fight, the first of the new year, as the vacant Japanese Minmumweight title was up for grabs. The title, vacated by Ryuji Hara, was expected to be very hard fought for. Instead however the bout saw Go Odaira (9-3-3, 1) completely dominate the hard hitting Masashi Tada (11-4-1, 7) in what turned out to be a genuinely 1-sided contest.

We had expected Tada to win though to see Odaira dominate him with scores of 99-92, 98-92, 98-92 really was impressive and although Odaira's record isn't great we'd not be shocked to see him holding on to this title for a while. Interestingly this was Odaira's 8th straight bout with out a loss with the most recent defeat on his record coming to Hara back in 2010. Notably this bout was an historic one, it was the first ever Japanese title fight fought with open scoring and we'd imagine we're going to see this become a regular thing with Japan being one of the early adopters of the system when the WBC first brought it in.

Although the main event of this show, "Dangan 92", was the Japanese title fight the show it's self featured a total of 7 bouts.

The card started with a series of 4 rounders. These saw 3 very well matched contests with Shunsuke Fukushima (2-1-2) narrowly overcoming the previously unbeaten Muneyoshi Kubo (1-1) by majority decision, a 4 round majority decision was also rendered in a bout between Makoto Kawasaki (4-1-1, 1) and Ken Otokawa (5-4, 3) whilst the other 4 rounder saw a split decision going to Joe Nakanishi (1-0) over fellow debutant Desierto Nagaike (0-1).

As well as the 4 rounders there were also a trio of 8 rounders. These saw Flyweight Yota Hori (10-2-2, 6) taking a hard fought decision over Musashi Suzuki (10-2, 4) in one of the A-Class tournament finals. Another of the A-Class tournament final came at Super Flyweight where Hayato Kimura (21-5, 15) took a decision over Kohei Kubo (16-5-1, 11), this was a bout we didn't imagine would go the schedule so credit to both men for taking the power of the other man in what looked like a potential thriller. The remaining bout, also one of the A-Class tournament finals, saw Kazuya Nakano (7-2, 6) taking his first decision victory, narrowly over-coming Takaomi Abe (15-3-2, 1).