August 16, 2000
August 16, 2000
TOKYO, JAPAN-Free-swinging WBC #25 Shingo Sasaki(right photo) (15-2-1. 11 KOs), 113.75, captured the Japanese national 115-pound title as he put on a furious give-and-take battle with WBC #11 ranked defending champ Takuya Kiya (18-4-1, 13 KOs), 115, winning a hairline majority decision over 10.
Scored: Morita 97-95, Uratani 96-95, both for Sasaki, and Uchida 96-96.
It was a total war. Sasaki made a very positive start with a flurry of punches, but Kiya responded with effective body bombardments. It’s like a battle between the headhunter and the body-puncher. The scrappy challenger had the champ’s left optic swollen badly with his numerous overhand rights.
They swapped solid rallies throughout the contest, but Sasaki remained fresher in later rounds despite his tremendously hot pace.
The national 115-pound title was vacated by Kazuhiro Ryuko, a fast-moving southpaw, upon his OPBF coronation. Kiya seized the vacant national belt by finishing hard-hitting lefty Yoshiaki Matsukura in the 5th on April 30. Kiya, making his first defense, was gunning for a world title shot at either the WBC champ Masamori Tokuyama or the WBA ruler Celes Kobayashi, both of Japan.
Kiya, a stylish boxer-puncher, once entered the WBA’s top ten by beating then rated Randy Mangubat, but dropped a close but unanimous verdict to upcoming future world champ Tokuyama, and also lost to world rated Panieng Okuda, a Japan-based Thailander, in April and July, 1999. He is such an unlucky boy as to lose prior to his road to the world throne.
Super-lightie Shunsuke Ito falttened Thailand’s Gaoglai Ganenorasing with a big right shot at 1:38 of the second round in a semi-final six. Ito is 8-1-1, 5 KOs.
Promoter: Kaneko Promotions.
(8-16-01)