February 7, 2004
TOKYO, JAPAN-WBC #3 ranked lightweight Kengo Nagashima (25-2-2, 14 KOs), 136, failed to impress the crowd as he was held to a split draw(97-96 for Nagashima, 97-96 for Laurente, and 97-97) by WBC #17 OPBF champ Dennis Laurente (19-2-4, 11 KOs), 136, in ten see-saw rounds on Saturday night in Tokyo, Japan. Laurente ’s OPBF title wasn’t at stake.
It was a lousy fight of southpaws as they repeated hit-and-grab tactics each other. Nagashima, who had moved up to the 135-pound division after his failure to win the vacant WBC 130-pound belt by a second round demolition by Thailander Sirimongkol Singmanassak Singwangcha in 2002, could not utilize his trade-mark footwork due to the Filipino’s quick attack. They swapped few punches and kept clinching to avert the opponent’s retaliation. The Japanese lefty, in the opening session, sustained a cut on the forehead, which kept streaming blood and kept him from outboxing as smoothly as usual. Laurente fought better than expected, so he deserves a rematch.
Japanese #3 bantam Hisataka Ikemori (19-6-3, 10 KOs), 118.75, also forgot his fight plan of outboxing and mixed it up recklessly, winning a unanimous nod (99-92, 100-94 and 99-93) over Korean #2 ranked Jounghwan Kim (3-3, 1 KO), 118.75, over ten. Yasuaki Goto, 109, eked out a majority verdict (78-75, 79-76 and 77-77) over Motoaki Hanta, 109, over eight. Masato Arai, 147, scored an upset TKO win over expected rookie Daisuke Negishi, 147, at 0:21 of the eighth and final session.
Promoter: Akihiko Honda’s Teiken Promotions.
Matchmaker: Joe Koizumi.
(2-7-04)