July 22, 2006
July 22, 2006
HIGASHI OSAKA, JAPAN
Unbeaten top contender Nobuo Nashiro (8-0, 5 KOs), 115, Japan, amazingly captured the WBA 115-pound belt as he kept stalking defending champ Martin Castillo (30-2, 16 KOs), 115, Mexico, and opened a gash over the left eyebrow, which became so grotesquely wide and deep that the referee Rafael Perez Pineda (Panama) finally declared a halt at 1:02 of the tenth round on Saturday in Higashi Osaka, Japan. The official tallies after the ninth were as follows: Erkki Meronen (Finland) 87-85 for Nashiro, Derek Milham (Australia) 87-85 for Castillo, and Guy Jutras (Canada) 86-86. It was such a highly competitive affair with Nashiro aggressively attacking the champ and Castillo counterpunching the challenger. Currently Japan has had six world champions at the same time along with Koshimoto (WBC feather), Hasegawa (WBC bantam), Tokuyama (WBC superfly), Niida (WBA minimum) and Eagle (WBC straw).
We witnessed a very dramatic first round, when Nashiro, 24, positively began fireworks and often landed solid left-right combinations to the champ, so the crowd thought the Japanese challenger made a good start to win the initial session. The 29-yer-old Castillo, however, exploded a well-timed left hook to the aggressive opponent, who almost sagged to his knees fortunately with the bell coming to his rescue. The judges scored it separately: 10-9, 9-10 and 10-10.
Nashiro was an aggressor all the way. Castillo, making his fifth defense, kept moving to-and-fro and attempted to counter the willing mixer with his favorite combination of a left hook followed by a short right in the second. But the Mexican sustained a cut over the left eyebrow caused by Nashiro’s legal shots in that session. Cutman Miguel Diaz, from Las Vegas, stopped the cut bleeding for a while, but Nashiro repeatedly landed effective straight rights to have the gash streaming blood again and again.
Nashiro, an obviously less experienced puncher, was in command in four rounds from the third, as he kept stalking the moving target and landed good left-right combos with precision. Castillo’s laceration stopped bleeding in the beginning of every round, but he returned to his corner with the face in crimson. The veteran cutman seemed to be in hot water.
The short-haired Japanese showed his best in round six, when he often caught the fading champ with solid one-two combinations and had him staggering. The seventh saw Nashiro still aggressive with a two-fisted attack with Castillo displaying some retaliation by hitting punches upstairs and downstairs. The champ, in the eighth, cleverly threw sharp combos to the onrushing Nashiro to win back a point. But Castillo, as previously, heard the bell to end the round with the blood streaming down the face.
The third man Perez once had the gash examined by the ring physician in the fifth, but allowed the fight to go on until the ninth, when Castillo’s laceration looked terribly worsened. The ref said the champ’s corner during a recess after the ninth that he would stop the proceedings unless the cut stopped bleeding. Midway in the fatal tenth, Pineda decided to call a halt to save the champ from further bleeding in such a tremendously gory affair. The ex-champ’s corner and Castillo himself made no complaint on the referee’s stoppage.
As this reporter and matchmaker as well entered Castillo’s dressing room afterwards, I got stunned at the width and depth of the laceration. He looked as if he had another eye over his own optic. It reminded me of a famous picture of Willie Pep who also had such a grotesquely wide and deep cut as a split pomegranate. It made sense that Castillo had to accept the referee’s verdict even if he still had energy to go on.
Nashiro, who gained the world belt in his eighth pro bout, is a university graduate, whose amateur mark was as mediocre as 38-19. He is not so fast, but good at hitting the target with precision. His punches aren’t sharp but heavy. Nashiro made a rapid progress after turning professional. He upset then world-rated Hidenobu Honda by an unexpectedly unanimous decision in August 2004 to enter the top ten. The banger wrested the national superfly belt by finally demolishing world-rated defending champ Seiji Tanaka, who unfortunately passed away two weeks after the tenth-round TKO defeat. Then, Nashiro scored a unanimous nod over then WBA #2 ranked Prosper Matsuura in an eliminator to decide the mandatory challenger last November. He defeated the three world contenders in a row to his credit.
Nashiro tied the record in Japan to seize the world belt in a shortest career (in the eighth pro bout) previously established by WBC bantam kingpin Joichiro Tatsuyoshi whom he respects very much. Even Japanese experts didn’t expect such a remarkable achievement of Nashiro stopping the highly regarded champ Castillo. Nashiro, a modest-spoken youngster, showed his best performance ever to seize the crown.
Hard-punching prospect Mikio Yasuda (9-3-2, 8 KOs), 119, Nashiro’s stablemate, impressively defeated WBC#17 ranked bantam contender Jaime Ortiz (15-10-1, 8 KOs), 119, by a unanimous decision (98-92, 97-93 and 96-94) over ten. Akira Yamazaki (8-1-3, 4 KOs), 130.5, scored a quick KO win over ex-Thai national feather champ Denthaksin Soonkilanoynai (12-11, 7 KOs), 131, in the second round.
Promoter: Mutoh Promotions in association with Teiken Promotions.
Matchmaker: Joe Koizumi.
(7-22-06)