Over the last few year's fans around the world of boxing have been talking about Naoya Inoue, the Monster, the destroyer of the lower weights. Today fans around the globe were introduced to another Inoue, the tough and gutsy Takeshi Inoue (13-1-1, 7) [井上 岳志] who challenged WBO Light Middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (32-0, 26), and gave the Mexican a much, much tougher bout than expected.
Before the fight Munguia was widely available as a 1/50 favourite. He was 1/8 to win by stoppage. It was seen by many as a foregone conclusion, that the new Mexican star would destroy the little known Japanese fighter. Most of that was down to the fact fans didn't know of Inoue, the man who had unified the Japanese, OPBF and WBO Asia Pacific titles in a huge 2017, and the fact that Munguia had impressed in recent bouts. Inoue had been confident all week, he hadn't travelled to be a showcase for Munguia, but instead to become the next champion from the Land of the Rising Sun. That showed through fight week. He was there to win. From the opening bell we learned that Inoue wasn't just talk, as he quickly took the fight to Munguia, pressing the much bigger Mexican fighter, getting in his face and fighting to his gameplan. The plan, as Inoue had told the Japanese media, was to press his head on Munguia's chest and work on the inside. And that's what he did, swarming over Munguia from the opening moments. The Mexican seemed surprised and although he landed some big shots of his own it was clear that we weren't seeing the marauding, destructive Munguia. The first few rounds were really interesting. Inoue refused to let Munguia have much room to work. When the champion did get room he looked good, landing good shots, but he rarely maintained a gap, with Inoue cleverly rushing in, pushing Munguia back and seemingly exposing how bad Munguia is on the back foot. The problem however was that Inoue lacked the power to ever hurt Munguia, and even lacked in terms of accuracy, but he was certainly giving thew champion a lot to think about. In round 3 a "Mehico" chant emerged, it was clear that the fans were well behind the champion, though Inoue continued to press the fight, and it seemed like Munguia was more and more focused on boxing an American style. Using his feet, creating space, and working off the jab at range. It wasn't what anyone was really used to seeing from the champion, who typically had an aggressive style. The clean blows were starting to come more frequently from Munguia, though he was still finding himself backded up and handcuffed by the pressure through the rounds. To his credit, when he did create space he was working well, and when he was on the ropes he was mostly defending well, but it did seem like he was needing to work harder than anticipated for his success. Round 5 was where Munguia began to have more success. He began to let more shots go, trying to get Inoue's respect. There was some good hooks from Munguia in this round and a fantastic right late on, though he still struggled to get Inoue to back off. It was clear that either, Inoue was insanely tough or Munguia's much vaunted power wasn't as potent as previous thought. Through the middle rounds Munguia began to box smarter. He was moving, a lot, wasting movement at times, but blunting the pressure of Inoue, making room for shots and digging in good body shots. He was also picking up his work rate on the inside, as he began to tighten his grip a bit. He was still being pushed about, but boxed well off the back foot, and began to have big finishes to rounds. That was especially clear in rounds 8, 9 and 10, all of which seemed to see Munguia letting big shots go late, to leave a lasting memory in the eyes of the judges. Despite essentially stealing round 10, which had been a strong Inoue round until the final 30 seconds, and hurting the challenger Munguia again found himself under pressure from Inoue in round 11 as the challenger showed himself to be fearless. The champion seemed to want to make a statement however, and landed some of his best shots in the final round, Inoue did take one incredibly cleanly, taking a rare moment to compose himself before coming forward as the two unloaded big shots to finish. The bout seemed like a clear, but close, Munguia win. The champion had been the better boxer, the more accurate and the bigger puncher. He had clearly been out worked in some rounds, especially early on, and hadn't looked like the star in the making that he has looked in other recent recent fights. It was however surprising, and disappointing, to hear the score cards read out as 120-108, twice, and 119-109. Those didn't reflect the bout at all and looked pre-filled. The bout was competitive, there was clear rounds that Inoue won early on, so to get only 1 round, from 1 judge, is mystifying. Thankfully, for Inoue and his career, his performance here will clearly have won him some new fans. He may have lost, but certainly improved his profile with a very gutsy and impressive performance. As fir Munguia, it seems like this performance may well see him and his team not rush into a fight with Jarrett Hurd, who would likely be an even bigger nightmare than Inoue was. Hopefully the challenger gets another big fight in the near future following this performance.
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The final world title bout of 2018 saw a new WBO Super Flyweight world champion being crowned as Filipino Donnie Nietes (42-1-5, 23) shocked the gamblers and took a split decision win over Kazuto Ioka (23-2, 13) [井岡一翔] in a brilliant technical match up between two fantastic fighters who fought evenly through out a captivating contest. Not only was it a captivating contest, but it was one fought at such a high skill level that both men showed off technical mastery like so few bouts we've seen this year.
Nietes took the early lead. He was countering well and making the most of the opportunities Ioka was giving him by fighting on the inside. It was brilliant work from Nietes to land the sharper, cleaner, more accurate shots. The early success of Nietes forced Ioka on to the outside. Boxing at range Ioka had a lot of success in the middle rounds, with Nietes slowing down, showing his age and struggling to catch up with Ioka, who seemed to run through the middle rounds with some ease to take the lead. Ioka's success saw the bout tighten up, a lot, and going into the final rounds it seemed there was everything to play for. The success wasn't dominant, but was clear and it was obvious that fighting at range Ioka could control things, and if he was able to keep up the out put and the movement he should have been able to win. In the final rounds however Nietes seemed to dig deep, find that extra bit of energy and close the distance. Ioka on the other hand slowed, began to stand his ground more and slow his movement. That allowed Nietes back into the fight, a fight that had seemed to be Ioka's after his strong middle portion of the fight. With the final 2 rounds being ultra close, pick em rounds if left possibles score of the bout all over the place, potentially from 116-112 either way. With the bout going the 12 rounds we went to the score cards and unsurprisingly they were split. Each man taking a 116-112 score card in their favour, though the bout was decided by a bizarre 118-110 card for Nietes, a score that would assume the judge had given Nietes every benefit imaginable. With the 2 judges having Nietes as the winner he now becomes the third Filipino to become a 4 weight champion, the 3rd man to win world titles in each of the 4 lowest weight classes and a sure fire hall of famer. For Ioka there is strong argument to have a rematch, of if Nietes retires a chance at the title when it becomes vacant again. For us fans this was the technical back and forth we had all anticipated. It wasn't a dramatic FOTY candidate but was a sensational bout, and the perfect way to close out the new year, even if one of the judges was watching something the rest of us wasn't. Earlier this year we saw Masayuki Ito (25-1-1, 13) [伊藤 雅雪] travel to the US and defeat Christopher Diaz to become the new WBO Super Featherweight champion. That bout saw Ito impress the US and UK fans, who had never heard of him, as well as becoming the first Japanese fighter to be crowned a world champion on US soil in over 30 years. Today he made his first defense of that title as he took on unbeaten mandatory challenger Evgeny Chuprakov (20-1, 10), from Russia. Despite it being a mandatory defense the bout was a mismatch, and there was several levels between the two fighters, with Chuprakov providing little challenge.
The open round was a messy one, with a lot of holding, wrestling and ugly action. The only real shots of any value were from Ito, who actually tried to box, whilst Chuprakov tried his best judo impressions and impressions of an angry goat, leading his head into Ito at every opportunity. Sadly for the challenger he was tagged by some brutal looking body shots as Ito showed he wasn't there to mess about. Chuprakov wrestled through round 2, and took more clean shots from Ito, who was starting to free himself from the messy spoiling, and landing more and more shots. Those shots became cleaner and cleaner round after round, with round 3 being another one where Ito dominated through his boxing, despite being cut from a clash of heads. Ito managed to really begin dictating the range in round 4, as the wrestling seemed to tire out Chuprakov. That made life easy for Ito to land sharp jabs and open Chuprakov up for straight right hands. Up close Ito was having more success in the clinch, landing uppercuts and body shots on the inside. Those shots seemed to make Chuprakov think twice about trying to smother and left the Russian with out another gameplan. He was being out boxed on the outside and out fought on the inside. In round 5 Chuprakov was hurt as he began to eat more and more head shots. He got through a doctors inspection on a cut, but wasn't able to avoid the punishment that Ito was sending his way. That punishment began to intensify with Ito really punishing Chuprakov in round 6, as the challenger's cut worsened and the fight was starting to become farcically one-sided. It seemed like the perfect time for Chuprakov's team to pull their man, who had no real chance of winning, out of the bout. Instead they let him go out for round 7. By now Ito knew that Chuprakov wasn't much of a test and quickly hurt his man. Chuprakov held on, but Ito hit him with his free hand, and managed to totally break the clinch whilst backing Chuprakov into the corner and unloading. Chuprakov tried to respond, in an attempt to survive, and then spat his gumshield out. He managed to earn a short respite but was cornered again soon afterwards, with Ito again firing off with both hands. Chuprakov's corner had seen enough and climbed on the apron signalling that they wanted to save their man, who was just getting battered. It was smart decision from the corner, their man had nothing left to offer though leaves us wondering what the WBO had had such a terrible mandatory challenger for Ito. Really Chuprakov didn't belong in the ring with Ito, or any top 10 type fighter. He was terrible. For Ito the fight didn't start how he would have wanted, but by the end end he was able to leave the impact he would have wanted, and threw enough in round 7 to have footage for a highlight reel. It's now expected that Ito will be fighting in the US next time out, and he has spoke about unification bouts, specifically a bout with WBC champion Miguel Berchelt. Whether he gets a big stateside bout is yet to be seen, but we are expecting him to return to the US in the new year, for a much better test than the one he got today. Having spent the last 2 weeks in none stop talks with a CBC representative to get a legal feed to the WBO Flyweight title bout between Sho Kimura and Kosei Tanaka we went into Monday with real fear. What if the bout we had done so much to hype failed to deliver, what if the stream failed, what if it ended inside a round or two, or ended because of a technical decision. Thankfully our fears were averted and instead we got a genuine contender for fight of the year, and a fight that reminds us how special all-Japanese world title fights are. In fact it reminds us that sometimes the bouts we are most looking forward to really can deliver and that fighters don't always “just want to win”, sometimes they want to win in a fashion that lasts long in the memory. Coming in to the bout we had Sho Kimura (17-2-2, 10) [木村翔] as the defending WBO Flyweight champion faced off with mandatory challenger Kosei Tanaka (12-0, 7) [田中恒成]. The champion was seeking his third defense, following a title win last year against Zou Shiming and succesful defenses against Toshiyuki Igarashi and Zou Shiming. Tanaka on the other hand was looking for his place in history, as only the second man to claim world titles in 3 weight classes in just 12 fights, following Vasyl Lomachenko. As we've become accustomed to with Japanese fights there was no feeling out round. There was no gradual build up to a crescendo. Instead the two men started fast, with the opening round playing out as the first of 12 action packed rounds of brutality. The naturally stronger Kimura applied the pressure straight away and forced Tanaka to box and move, through Tanaka regularly stood his ground anded traded blows, relying on his speed and reactions to out land Kimura. The champion was hurt in round 2 from a huge counter left hook from Tanaka, which lead to Tanaka going for the finish, though Kimura was no where hurt enough and he began to fire back as Tanaka realised it was too soon. Kimura was hurt again in round 3 from a right hand, but held his own for much of the round. Kimura began to build some momentum of his own in round 4 and in round 5 he began to grind down Tanaka, who was taking a lot of hard shots, despite having moments of his own. Kimura, who is typically a fighter who gets stronger the longer bouts go, seemed to be dragging Tanaka into his fight with body shots and his pressure taking a toll. That sustained success from Kimura didn't last too long with Tanaka turning it back on it round 6, as he began to try and turn the fight back in his direction. That was partly because Tanaka changed his game plan and started to use more movement. Whilst Kimura was strong and aggressive he was being made to chase shadows at times and at one point Tanaka looked Lomachenko-esque switching from side to side on Kimura who was unable to respond. Kimura's pressure began to amp up again in round 8, especially late in the round as he tried to put the pain on Tanaka, but again Tanaka's movement saved him from too much harm, despite a real desire being shown from the champion. In round 9 it seemed Tanaka again took control as he began walking down Kimura, a tactic that was unexpected but seemed to work as Kimura's right eye began to close rapidly. The champion was soon fighting one eyes, and on the back foot. Despite being defensively tight Kimura was eating shots on a regular basis with Tanaka pushing him backwards. Tanaka looked like he was in the lead, but was wanting to leave an impression in the final rounds as he hunted a stoppage. It wasn't a smart move and instead it left the door open to Kimura who gritted his teeth and had real success late on, leaving Tanaka's face swollen and bruised. The tactics of Tanaka late were impressive, backing up Kimura, but were unnecessary and Tanaka kept getting caught by the heavier shots of Kimura. At the end the bout seemed to be very competitive at times, with both men having a few clear rounds. Both men had been to hell and back, both were swollen messes, both had taken serious punishment. To us it seemed like Tanaka had won a clear, but competitive fight, but the judges seemed to have it very close with scores of 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112, giving Tanaka the majority decision. With the win Tanaka joins the growing list of Japanese 3 weight champions, having achieved that feat quicker than any other Japanese fighter in history. Also we believe he's become the youngest 2 weight champion in history. For Kimura the loss ends his Cinderella man run of results, though given this performance and his growing popularity in China and Japan we suspect we'll see him return to title level in the not so distant future. We'd like to send a massive thank you to the people at CBC for helping us get an official feed and thanks to the two men in the ring for a FOTY contender. It's just a shame it wasn't shown live across Japan, and won't be aired in much of Japan until the middle of the week. (Image courtesy of boxmob.jp) Earlier this year we saw the first All-Filipino world title fight in over 90 years, as Jerwin Ancajas defended the IBF Super Flyweight title against Jonas Sultan. On paper that looked a good bout, but ended up never catching a light and being pretty forgettable. Today we had the second all-Filipino world title fight of the year, as Donnie Nietes (41-1-5, 23) and Aston Palicte (24-2-1, 20) traded blows for the WBO Super Flyweight title.
For Nietes the bout saw him looking to become the third 4 weight world champion from the Philippines, following Manny Pacquiao and Nonito Donaire, and the third man to win world titles in the sport's 4 lowest weight classes. For Palicte it was a chance to emerge from the shadows of Filipino boxing to become a world champion. The bout was competitive through out. It matched the incredible skills and boxing IQ of Nietes against the imposing physical size of Palicte. From the off both men had moments, and it was a hard one to score either way with Nietes landing the more consistently offensive, but taking the heavier leather, and being pushed on to the back foot through out the fight. It was also the combinations from Palicte, which rarely landed cleanly, that really caught the eye with numerous shots being thrown with so much power that Nietes found his own gloves smashing into his face. Nietes' ring craft was amazing. At the age of 36 he he was able to set traps on a regular basis, often luring Palicte into clean right hands, and countering brilliantly. He was however unable to get Palicte's respect and the younger man, a natural Super Flyweight, took shots cleanly and seemed to smile, whilst taking them. It was possibly the regular smirk of Palicte that made Nietes' clean shorts seem unthreatening compared to the glancing blows of his own. There was very few clean cut bouts through the entire fight. It was often a case of picking a winner of a very close round. One of the few clear cut rounds was round 4, a round that Nietes seemed to take off. On the other hand he clearly won round 5, as he picked up the pace and found a home for his right hand, which landed frequently through a brilliant stanza for the veteran. Another clear round was the final one, which saw Nietes landing several of his most eye catching shots. For the most part however there was very, very, little to pick between the two fighters, and a strong case could be made either way. The close nature of the rounds seemed to give the feeling that no score was really going to be wrong. Despite the commentary playing a strong pro-Nietes narrative through out, cheer leading the skills of Nietes and giving very little credit to Palicte and his work. That close nature of each round showed on the scorecards which were 116-112, in favour of Palicte, 118-110, for Nietes, and 114-114, giving us a split draw. The HBO team try to play off that the bout was a robbery, quote the always questionable Compubox as part of their narrative. The reality however is that there was very, very little to split them overall. On a round by round basis, neither man did enough to really assert their self. 118-110 and 116-112, either way, were wide, but a strong case could be argued for either of those cards. In the end however the draw seemed the fairest result and the most accurate. As a result of the draw he WBO title does remain vacant. A rematch between the two is a real possibility, as would be a bout between either man and the returning Kazuto Ioka, who won on the same card against McWilliams Arroyo who had been the WBO #3 ranked fighter behind Nietes ans Palicte. The month of August hasn't been great for Japanese Super Bantamweights. Back on August 16th we saw Ryosuke Iwasa lose the IBF title to TJ Doheny in Tokyo. On August 23rd Hinata Maruta was held to a controversial draw against Ben Mananquil in the Philippines. That run unfortunately continued this past Saturday when 37 year old Hidenori Otake (31-3-3, 14) suffered his first stoppage loss, being taken out inside a round by WBO Super Bantamweight champion Isaac Dogboe (20-0, 14).
Otake had gone over to Arizona confident, he had spoke about taking Dogboe long and defeating him based on his stamina. That confidence showed as he looked to stand toe-to-toe with Dogboe and take the fight to him. Sadly for Otake that was a mistake as Dogboe was sharper, quicker and more accurate, landing solid uppercuts and left hooks at will. One of those left hooks was a dynamite shot right on the chin, sending Otake down hard. The Japanese fighter, who had proven toughness, got to his feet at the count of 4 and went on to the front foot, trying to take the fight to Dogboe. It was a mistake and he was forced to touch down again only moments later. Otake continued to fight but was totally unable to avoid the left hooks from Dogboe and the bout was stopped as Dogboe unloaded a big flurry on to the Japanese fighter. This is likely to be Otake's final bout as a professional, and we're expecting him to announce his retirement very soon. As for Dogboe the future is very exciting and he openly called out the other world champions after his win, with potential show downs against Rey Vargas, Daniel Roman and TJ Doheny all interesting looking bouts for the young fighter from Ghana. Masayuki Ito puts in career defining performance, claims WBO title with victory over Diaz!7/29/2018 There's long been a reputation of Japanese fighters not being good travellers. The reality is often that they prepare badly for their bouts on the road. Instead of giving themselves time to acclimatise they often travel the week or so before the fight and never really give themselves time to get read to fight a world class opponent.
One man who seemed fully aware that he needed to give himself time to prepare Stateside was Masayuki Ito (24-1-1, 12) [伊藤 雅雪], who put on a career defining performance to take the unbeaten record of Puerto Rican Christopher Diaz (23-1, 15) and become the new WBO Super Featherweight world champion. The fight started at an amazing pace with both men looking to get their jabs going. It wasn't long until Ito found the range for his right hand and managed to work sharp uppercuts on the inside, proving he could get out on top on both the inside and outside. It was competitive but Ito did seem to be the man landing the cleaner, harder shots. Ito's confidence grew in the second round as he outlanded Diaz and landed the better more painful shots to both head and body. Diaz was becoming more and more wild looking to land something to establish himself but he was really struggling. The Puerto Rican managed to up the pace in round 3, the first round that could really have gone his way. He upped the tempo and managed to find the range and timing for his left hook. It was a close round but one that certainly went to Diaz. It was however just a short respite for the Puerto Rican fighter who was dropped from a big combination of headshots in round 4, and Ito's accuracy showed as he hammered the face of Diaz, swelling his eye noticable. Diaz, to his credit, fought back and even seemed to hurt Ito, but the Japanese fighter landed some big body shots late on to slow the Puerto Rican's fight back. Amazingly Diaz had a fantastic bounce back round in the fifth as he seemed to step his foot on the gas again and give Ito some problems. Ito was holding his own for the most part but it did seem like a round that Diaz won, though it was competitive and perhaps felt more like a Diaz round based on how much better he did in the round than he had in the previous one. Sadly though the fight back was a bit of a short lived one with Ito essentially sweeping the middle rounds by out working, out landing and out powering Diaz, who had his moments but always seemed to take shots back with interest. It wasn't until round 9 that someone could make a case for Diaz to take another round, but he did start a nice little surge and seemed to do enough in round 10 to deserve that too, with Ito starting to slow, and perhaps show signs of tiredness. Not only did Ito seemed slower and less active in round 10 but Diaz began to get his shots off and landed several notable shots, with a right hand looking like it had hurt Ito. Given the tempo of the fight it wouldn't have been a surprise to see Ito feeling the pace of the action but instead he he seemed to come out for round 11 with more energy, boxing on the move and using his jab early before sneaking inside and working up close. The shots from Ito were worsening the damage on Diaz's face with his left eye essentially swollen shut, and bleeding. Itos was unloading combinations and despite being tagged hard by a left hook it was the Japanese fighter who was controlling the round, one of the clearest of the fight. Diaz, several times, showed how much pain he was in, and was close to fighting with just one eye. Diaz needed to go for a KO in the final round but he seemed to be worn out, in pain and was on the receiving end of a beating through the round, with Ito looking to close the show. Diaz, to his credit, saw off the aggression of the Japanese fighter, but lost the round, and didn't really come close to scoring the knockout he needed. Having seen 12 rounds of action we went to the score-cards which were all in favour of Diaz, with scores of 116-111, 117-110 and 118-109. With the win Ito becomes the first Japanese fighter since 1981 to win a world title in the US, which was when Tadashi Mihara claimed the WBA Middleweight title in New York. Not only did he win the title but he also put himself on the international boxing map, with new fans fans now wanting to follow his fun and fan friendly style. For Diaz the loss will be a painful one, he gave his all but had all sorts of technical flaws that Ito took advantage of. He showed his heart, and his desire, but he was simply not good enough on the night to over-come Ito, who really did put in the performance of a life time. Whilst Ito was a clear winner the fight was so action packed, busy and exciting that it should make a shortlist for Fight of the Year. It was high tempo, both men were hurt a number of times, and action packed. Just like every great fight should be. Earlier this month fight fans in Japan got a minor upset, with Filipino Vic Saludar defeating Ryuya Yamanaka for the WBO Minimumweight title. Today Vic's brother Froilan Saludar (28-3-1, 19) attempted to double the family's haul of world titles as he travelled to China and faced off with WBO Flyweight champion Sho Kimura (17-1-2, 10) [木村翔], who was looking to secure his second defense of the belt.
The fight started excellently for Saludar as he boxed off the back foot, neutralising the pressure of Kimura and landing the cleaner, better and more accurate shots. To his credit Kimura took the shots well but it was clearly a round for the challenger. Saludar also seemed to shine in round 2 as he picked off Kimura's pressure, countered excellently and showed off the boxing skills that had seen earn so much hype early in his career. The fight began to turn in round 3 when Kimura upped the pressure, moving through the gears and and trapping Saludar on the ropes, where he went to work big time. The Filipino had no answer with Kimura showing he had the ability to cut the ring off as and when he wished. Saludar tried to return the favour in round 4, when he trapped Kimura, but was unable to get the champion's respect and the round finished with Kimura back on top. The pressure of Kimura was beginning to be cranked up and he was forcing Saludar to move move more, use his legs more and wear himself out. That was compounded by the clean body shots that Kimura was landing, with those shots taking the legs from the challenger in round 5. Without his movement Saludar was a sitting duck and was dropped with a shot to the mid-section in round 5 as he began to wear down under the now relentless pressure of Kimura. The champion seemed confident that Saludar hadn't recovered as we began round 5 and he jumped on the challenger, unloading shots from the off. Saludar began to fight fire with fire and traded blows in what was a wild fire fight, but unfortunately for Saludar he was now running on fumes and a second knock down saw Saludar take the 10 count. With two defenses now under his belt Kimura is now set to return to make a mandatory title defense against former WBO Minimumweight and Light Flyweight champion Kosei Tanaka, in what is expected to be a thrilling all Japanese world title fight as we head towards the end of 2018. Back in 2015 fight fans saw Vic Saludar (18-3, 10) put himself on the boxing map as he droped the then WBO Minimumweight champion Kosei Tanaka, before being stopped himself whilst up on the card in Japan. Today Saludar return to the Land of the Rising Sun and took on Ryuya Yamanaka (16-3, 5) [山中 竜也] for the same title that he had pushed Tanaka so hard for. This time however things were different and it was Saludar taking home the gold after a career defining win over the Japanese slickster.
The fight started quickly from Yamanaka, who looked to make an immediate impact and catch the eyes of the judge's in the opening few moments, After doing that however the bout then slowed to a near standstill for the final minute of the opening round as both fighters stood off each other and looked for opening, but found none. The bout did then move up a level as Yamanaka showed his speed and skills as he countered the challenger and looked like the world champion had schooled Moises Calleros earlier this year. The confidence of the champion grew in round 2 as he engaged in a war on the inside, a war that he seemed to win with body shots and volume. It seemed like a smart game plan from Yamanaka, to get inside and work away on Saludar, who couldn't get the leverage his power needed up close. Saludar seemed to realise that the inside battle wasn't going to be the best for him and in round 4 started to back off and disengage, forcing Yamanaka to work harder to get inside, and eat some counters on the way in. It was a tactic that worked even better for Saludar in round 5, as he landed some very solid body shots and left Yamanaka looking second best through the full round. It wasn't until round 6 that Yamanaka would manage to get inside again, and the two men spent the final 90 seconds of the round trading blows in round of the fight. It again showed that Yamanaka was the better man up close, with Saludar lacking the power to get Yamanaka's respect. Unfortunately for Yamanaka he wasn't able to cut the distance particularly well as and when he wanted to, and that showed in round 7 when he was caught by a full blooded Saludar right hand, that send him down. The Japanese fighter recovered to his feet but was still clearly hurt when he got up. Saludar could smell blood and went hunt, chasing Yamanaka, and would twice wrestle him to canvas as Yamanaka survied the round. Although the defending champion had surrived there was still danger and he didn't look like he had recovered as we headed into round 8. The round saw Yamanaka avoid a fight as much as he could. Saludar brought the pressure through the round but could never land a huge shot to see off Yamanaka, who managed to clear his head through the round. The 9th round saw a recovered Yamanaka try to box with Saludar. It was a tactic that worked at times, with Yamanaka landing several solid right hands, but it left him open to Saludar's power and the challenger landed a very notable right hand, that had it connected the previous round would likely have spelled game over for Yamanaka. It was clear that Yamanaka was behind and in roudn 10 he did what had worked so well for him earlier in the fight, he got inside and worked the body. It was an effective tactic and at one point it did seem like Saludar's legs wobbled. Round 11 followed a similar pattern to the 10th, with Yamanaka getting in close an working, but it ended with Saludar creating some distance late an landing some of the better shots of the round. Saludar seemed to feel like he was in a comfortable lead and boxed very smartly in round 12. He let Yamanake come to him, whilst he jabbed and moved, landing clean head shots on Yamanaka, who's face ended up half caked in his own blood. It was a brilliant round from Saludar who took next to no risks and took the round through pure skill and ring craft. Going to the scorecards we felt Saludar had done enough, as did the fighter himself, and the judges agreed, with scores of 117-110, 116-111 and 115-112 all in favour of the new champion Vic Saludar. For the Saludar family this is a great boost and comes just weeks before Vic's brother Froilan Saludar battles Sho Kimura for the WBO Flyweight title. Sadly for Yamanaka it spells the end of his reign after just a single successful defense. Last year Japanese boxing had some genuinely great stories, such as that of Sho Kimura, who came out of nowhere to claim the WBO Flyweight title by stopping Zou Shiming. Another was 22 year old Ryuya Yamanaka (16-2, 5), who claimed the WBO Minimunweight title with a very hard fought win over Tatsuya Fukuhara to put his name on the map.
Although he won the title last year Yamanaka was still somewhat of an unknown, and lacked the wider attention that many other Japanese world champions were getting. Today however he made a statement, and opened the eyes of many as he dominated the very solid Moises Calleros (28-8-1, 16), and forced the Mexican to retire after round 8. Yamanaka looked sharp as a tack from the opening round. He was quick, smart and beating Calleros to the punch. Not only was he landing his own shots regularly but he wasn't taking much return fire, with Calleros looking slow, clumsy and awkward. The success of Yamanaka continued from round 1, to round 2 and then grow round after round. He not only showed he could box and move, as he began to show incredible variation in his work. Standing his ground and countering, slipping shots just outside the pocket, and pressing Calleros who seemed to begin questioning himself very early on. By round 4 it looked like Yamanaka's only problem's could be that he might slow down, or that he could be caught by a single bit shot. But he looked so relaxed, so calm and so confident that neither of those things looked likely. Instead he seemed to to just build on what he was doing, landing some more telling right hands up top, nasty uppercuts and hurtful body blows. There no answer from Calleros who was looking a like a fighter who simply hadn't got a game plan for Yamanaka or his movement. Going into round 8 the bout looked a foregone conclusion, but given Calleros' toughness and Yamanaka's relative lack of power it looked like we'd be going the distance. Surprisingly however Yamanaka hurt Calleros, and then went on the hunt, picking the challenger apart with accurate and hard shots. Calleros looked like a spent fighter, out of ideas and out of energy and both fighters knew it. Yamanaka went for the finish but couldn't find it in the ring. It wasn't to matter however as Calleros retired in his corner following the round. With the win Yamanaka legitimised his reign almost instantly, and whilst he is the newest of the world champions at 105lbs he looks to be the most pure boxer at the top of the division and could be the divisional dark horse given how sensational he looked here. |
World Title Results
Whether you like them or not World Titles add prestige to any bout as a result we've included the results of world title bouts in this special section. Archives
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