April 8
TOKYO, JAPAN
WBC#4/WBA#8/IBF#8/WBO#8 flyweight Suguru Muranaka (22-2, 7 KOs), weighing at 114.75 over the stipulated 112-pound limit, failed to pass the weigh-in prior to his third defense of the national belt and was obliged to forfeit his throne, but impressively defeated top contender Takuma Hayashi (25-3-2, 9 KOs), 112, by a unanimous decision (96-94 twice, 97-93) over ten heats on Wednesday in Tokyo, Japan.
Muranaka, unbeaten in last eight years, might be castigated with his failure in making the class limit despite being the defending champ, but once he appeared in the ring despite his dehydration, he showed his potential and finely outscored Hayashi thanks to his superior skills and smartness to overcome his careless mistake in his controlling the weight. The 29-year-old national champ, often sparring with Naoya “Monster” Inoue or Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, displayed his patience in earlier rounds, solving the game and gutsy challenger’s opening attacks. The open scoring system indicated after the first half that Hayashi was leading on points after the first half?49-47, 48-47 for Hayashi, and 48-47 for Muranaka. This reporter had it 48-47 for Muranaka due to his accuracy in punching.
Muranaka was smart enough as he had saved his stamina in the first five rounds and fully opened his engine in the latter half, sweeping four rounds to one for Hayashi who dominated only the ninth with his aggressiveness, not with his precision. As for the precision of punching, Muranaka was much more accurate and economical, scoring much higher precision in punching effectively. The ex-champ was always superior in swapping punches in the close quarter due to his precision with Hayashi being forced to retreat with his absorption of short punches in the close range.
Though people were worried about his stamina, his distribution of limited stamina was excellent and efficient enough to score such an impressive victory..
It is, in fact, very rare to see our national champ to be overweight at the weigh-in in Japanese title bouts. The title, in general, is a money-making tool, so it might be stupid to make his belt priceless with his failure to make the weight. But Muranaka stupidly did it, and people expected his miserable defeat, probably, by a knockout midway in the contest. But fact is stranger than fiction.
The Muranaka incident reminded this reporter of a very rare example of a Japanese champ having failed to make the weight to forfeit his belt. In Japan, a failure of making the stipulated weight has been regarded as a crime and betrayal to the spirit of Noble Art based on the weight system.
It was on March 19, 1967, that Japanese bantam titlist Katsuo Saito, after a very severe reduction of weight, couldn’t make the 118-pound class limit and was allowed to reduce his weight in two more hours only to scale in at 119.5, one and a half pound over the limit. The weigh-in, at that time, took place on the morning of the fight day, usually at 10 AM, ten hours before the main event at 8 PM. Saito had to come and fight in eight hours after his final failure to make the weight.
Heavily drained of body water and apparently still dehydrated, Saito, at night, appeared in the ring wobblingly as if he was a sleep-walker, slow and sluggish from the start. The challenger was Ushiwakamaru Harada, a 19-year-old younger brother of the then world bantam champ Fighting Harada, an obvious underdog against Saito, more experienced and more talented. Far from his top shape, Saito miserably absorbed Ushiwakamaru’s opening attack, hit the deck twice in the first session and once more in the fatal second round. Saito suffered a second round knockout.
(4-9-2015)