Results from Chinese prospect show

Kunming, China
It's not often that boxing has a show full of novices but's what we had in China this past Sunday with a long Zovi boxing card in Kunming, the home town of Xiong Zhao Zhong, the only ever male Chinese world champion.

In total the card had 13 bouts and amazingly all but 2 of them went the distance.

One of the bouts that didn't go the distance saw Yang Xing Xin (7-3-2, 5), the most experienced man on the show, stopping the debuting Hu En Tu (0-1). Tu was one of 23 debutants on the show and like 12 others he was beaten. The other stoppage saw Yang Zheng Guang (1-0, 1) defeat Yuan Wu Qiang (0-1).

The Guang/Qiang bout was one of 3 Featherweight bouts. The others saw Zhu Yuan Cai (1-0) out point Shen Kang (0-1) and Zhang Fang Yong (1-0) take a decision over Yang Dong (0-1).

At Super Bantamweight, the lowest weight that saw some action, fans got to see Yang Zhen Yong (1-0) out point Tao Guang Hong (0-1) whilst at Super Bantamweight Pai La Kun (1-0) defeated Dong Chuan (0-1).

In the Super Featherweight division the slightly experienced Xian Wei Qian (3-3-1) defeated Jian Hai Fei (0-1) whilst Zhang Hong Peng (1-0) over-came Guo Chao (0-1).

At Lightweight Bai A Fu (1-0) defeated Wang Li Ming (0-1) whilst Light Welterweight action saw Hu Li Fu (1-0) defeated Ma Men Guang (0-1) and Wang JV Lin (1-0) took a decision over Liu Wei (0-1). 

At Middleweight where Zhang Yong Ming (2-0) defeated Yang Hui (0-1) whilst at Super Middleweight Liang Ming Kui (1-0) decisioned Ye Guo Hao (0-1)

Shizuoka, Japan
Whilst the longest show of the day was the Chinese one there was also several cards spread across Japan. For us the stand out fight, on paper, from those shows was in Shizuoka as former OPBF Super Bantamweight champion Roli Gasca (22-4-1, 6) showed his class and thoroughly dominated the less experienced Yuta Horiike (9-2-3, 2). Gasca, who genuinely a very talented fighter, is best known to Japanese fans for his losses to Yukinori Oguni and his draw to Akifumi Shimoda though in all honesty he is fringe world class and could give a lot of very good 122lb fighters a very hard nights work.

In the chief support bouts to the Gasca/Horiike bout fans got to see the light punching Shota Suito (9-3-1, 1) take a narrow decision over Michiya Sato (10-6-4, 6) whilst the once beaten Hideo Sakamoto (14-1-2, 4) made very light work of Yuki Tsuge (12-4, 6), who was stopped in just 89 seconds.

O the undercard we had 4 bouts scheduled for 4 rounders. These included 2 early finishes and 2 very competitive bouts.

The most competitive of the 4 rounders was the draw between debuting pair Tatsuharu Okura (0-0-1) and Suguru Kayashima (0-0-1) which was split 2 rounds each by 2 of the judges to give us a majority decision. The other close and thoroughly competitive contest saw Japanese based Colombian Elfelos Vega (3-1, 2) take a split decision over Yuichi Sakuta (2-2-, 1) with all 3 judges scoring the bout 38-37.

The early finishes saw the unbeaten Shogo Yamaguchi (3-0-1, 2) stopping Masayuki Hirano (2-3, 1) in the 3rd round of their fight whilst Shota Okuda (4-1, 2) stopped Tetsuya Kudo (3-2, 2) in the second round of their contest.

Osaka, Japan
Alhough the stand out bout was on the Shizuoka card the best card of the day was in Osaka where we had 3 Japanese ranked fighters in action on a long 11 fight show. 

Of the 11 bouts 8 were scheduled for 4 rounds. From those 8 bouts on the lower part of the card they were evenly split with 4 ending early and 4 going the distance.

The distance bouts saw Masayoshi Hashizume (3-0, 2) beating the previously unbeaten Ryusuke Tanaka (3-1, 1) in a clear decision, Shachihoko Dragons Keita (4-2, 1) take a very narrow victory over Daisuke Takeichi (1-2, 1) and the debuting Golgosaithon Kenji (1-0) completely dominate Sumeeman Shoki (0-4) in a bout scored 40-35 by all 3 judges. The remaining decision bout was an all debutant affair that saw Takuya Hase (0-0-1) fight to a split draw with Kenta Sakaya (0-0-1).

As for the stoppages one came in an all debutant bout as Ryusei Kitamura (1-0, 1) stopped Tenmei Aoi (0-1) in 2 rounds, like wise it only took 2 rounds for Tom Tsukamoto (5-4-1, 1) to stop the previously unbeaten Yuki Ono (2-1, 1). Both of the other stoppages in 4 rounders came in round 3 as Kohei Iwai (2-2-1, 2) stopped Ryota Shimizu (3-5, 1) and Kaminoko Okamura Kentokid (3-0-1, 2) stopped Hiroshi Takagi (2-3).

In the first of the more notable bouts the wonderfully named and excitingly hard hitting Middleweight Koki Tyson Maebara (6-1-1, 6) stopped Hiroshi Ohashi (7-8, 3) who was beaten inside the distance for the third time in his career. This stoppage came with just 65 seconds left. Maebara was one of two ranked fighters to successfully win alongside the baby faced Cyborg Nawatedani (7-2-2, 3) who defended his Super Flyweight ranking with a decision over Sho Nakazawa (17-11-2, 1).

Unfortunately for ranked fighters they didn't go 3-0 as Shohei Kanemoto (9-7-1, 3) took a very unexpected victory over the hard hitting Jumbo Oda Nobunaga Shoten Petagine (8-2, 7). This bout was one where Petagine's power didn't destroy his opponent and for the second time his lack of a plan B has cost him.

Fukuoka, Japan
In Fukuoka we got a 7 bout card headed by a bout between Tatsuya Fukuhara (12-4-4, 3) and Akiyoshi Kanazawa (11-2-4, 5) which finished in a disappointing 7th round technical draw. This was a third successive set back for Fukuhara who was also the debut opponent for Takuma Inoue back in December of last year, where he dropped a lop-sided decision to the then 17 year old.

The chief support contest here saw Yuta Sasaki (6-3, 1) out point Tadashige Nakao (6-4-2, 5) in the only bout scheduled for 6 rounds.

The remaining contests were all scheduled for 4 rounds and surprisingly all but one went the distance. 

The bout that failed to go the scheduled 4 rounds saw Shuya Murata (1-0, 1) stopping fellow debutant Hayato Nakamura (0-1) at the very start, 12 seconds, into the second round.

In the bouts that went the distance Yudai Yamakawa (2-2, 1) out pointed Junya Mishima (3-7, 3), Hideaki Yamaji (4-4, 2) over-came Yuki Shigeyoshi (1-4-2), Naoki Yamashita (1-1) took a hard fought victory over Koichiro Higashi (0-3) and Yoichi Kojima (1-1) struggled to a majority decision over the debuting Ryutaro Yamamoto (0-1).

Hyogo, Japan
The remaining show that took place in Japan over Sunday was in Hyogo. This was the lowest profile card of the day though on paper it was the most perfectly matched with no visible mismatches on the card. As it turned out there a lot of competitive action even though we did see two early finishes.

The earliest of those finishes came in just 48 seconds as the limited Takaaki Kitagawa (3-2, 2) stopped the debuting Tadao Iwaya (0-1) in a blink and you miss it fight. The only other stoppage saw Yu Yan (4-2-2, 3) take out Tsukasa Horiuchi (1-2, 1) in the third round.

Although Iwaya was stopped on his debut we did see a deuting fighter score a victory as the debuting Seigo Yuriakui (1-0) completely shut out Yuki Sueyoshi (1-0, 1). Just one other 4 rounder was one sided as Ryo Kanda (2-0, 1) took a dominant decision over Tatsuya Sato (2-2, 1) with Kanada in charge of the bout from the off.

The competitive nature was seen as Takuya Sugiyama (2-2) struggled to a majority decision over Tatsuya Terada (1-1) and Kensuke Fujita (1-0-2) fought to a draw with Toru Kageyama (3-5-1, 2).

The only 6 rounder on the card saw  Takeshi Sone (5-2-1, 1) overcome Munehito Kijima (5-5-1) via a some what clear decision before the 8 round main event saw good back and forth between Kazuya Murata (9-4, 3) and Hirokazu Okajima (8-4-2,4), with Murata taking a narrow decision.


(Poster courtesy of Zovi Boxing)

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