July 01, 2008
July 01, 2008
TOKYO, JAPAN
Sensational six-round tournaments to decide next mandatory challengers to Japanese national champs started on Tuesday at the Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan, and we witnessed a stunning upset. Unheralded JBC#2 minimum Masatate Tsuji (11-1-2, 3 KOs) (right photo), 104.75, a busy-punching but methodical southpaw, took the initiative and withstood a fifth-round retaliation of ex-OPBF champ and ex-world challenger, WBC#18 Akira Yaegashi (7-2, 5 KOs), 105, to score an upset majority decision (58-57 twice and 58-58) over six. No one had expected Tsuji’s triumph, but the workman stylist persistently kept stalking the footworker and throwing punches regardless of precision. Probably overconfident, Yaegashi was waiting too long for openings to score big counters and it was only in the fifth that he started his engine. His laziness in the first four sessions cost this tune-up fight for Yaegashi who is gunning for his second world title shot, as he had failed to win the WBC 105-pound belt from Eagle Den Junlaphan in June of the previous year.
Former national feather champ, JBC#7 Koji Umezu (14-8-1, 6 KOs), 125.75, eked out a split nod (59-57 twice and 56-58) over JBC#3 Yasuki Takemoto (12-2-2, 3 KOs), 126, the younger brother of ex-world challenger Zaiki, over six. Umezu cleverly confused and frustrated the taller but methodical prospect with his tricky mobility and unorthodox attacks.
JBC#5 Hiroshi Nakamori (24-2-1, 14 KOs), 134.5, scored a shutout decision (60-53 twice and 60-52) over ex-OPBF challenger, JBC#7 Koji Samejima (16-3-1, 6 KOs), 134.75, over six. It became a much more lopsided affair than expected, as Nakamori was too fast and pugnacious for the sluggish Samejima.
Ex-national title challenger, JBC#7 Kenji Saegusa (18-6-1, 9 KOs), 118, landed lighter but busier punches to game but less skillful Takafumi Himeno (17-5-2, 5 KOs), 117.5, to be awarded a split decision (58-57 twice and 57-58) over six.
Hideyuki Ohashi, East Japan president of the JPBA (the union of managers) as well as ex-WBC/WBA 105-pound champ, positively pushed ahead with this tourney to stimulate the popularity of boxing and forced his golden boy Yaegashi into such a tournament only for the qualification to have a mandatory shot to the national champ. Ohashi might be greatly stunned by Yaegashi’s unexpected defeat. But this tourney is interesting and meaningful.
Promoter: East Japan Pro Boxing Association.
(7-1-08)
June 30, 2008
WBA#3/WBC#8 Japanese minimum champ Yasutaka Kuroki (18-3, 13 KOs), 105, impressively kept his national belt as he floored ex-champ Makoto Suzuki (21-13-2, 13 KOs), 105, twice and halted him with a volley of punches to prompt the referee’s intervention at 1:46 of the sixth round on Monday in Tokyo, Japan.
Kuroki, making his third defense since dethroning Teruo Misawa in May last year, quickly decked the 36-year-old challenger with a southpaw right hook in the first. The champ went all out for a kill but absorbed a vicious left hook, almost losing his equilibrium. The faster, younger and more talented Kuroki, 26, kept peppering and moving to-and-fro ? a la Ivan Calderon ? though Suzuki came out fighting with heavier lefts and rights to the elusive target. The fatal sixth saw Kuroki catch the veteran with a solid left to drop him for a mandatory eight and Suzuki almost resume fighting only to be rescued by the third man.
For the fast-rising Kuroki who thus registered 12 wins straight, his regrettable blemish in his career is a first-round KO defeat by current OPBF ruler Toshikazu Waga in a six rounder five years ago. Reportedly Kuroki himself wishes to go and face Waga in the OPBF champ’s home-turf, Nagoya, to avenge his previous annihilation, but it is an intricate question whether it will really materialize at this moment as neither party refuses to go to the other’s hometown.
Promoter: Yamaguchi Tsuchiura Promotions.
(6-30-08)