Three-time, two-division world champion Miyo Yoshida lost another extremely controversial ten-round unanimous decision to Shurretta “Chiccn” Metcalf on October 23rd (in the main event) despite once again dominating the fight.
“When the ring announcer read the decision, I was very surprised that I lost,” a dejected Yoshida said while back in her home country of Japan through her translator, Kenji Shiwaku, who has known her for the last eight years and has worked with her for the last two. “I felt that I won the fight. I boxed well, outlanded her, and did not get hit often.”
According to CompuBox punch statistics, Yoshida beat Metcalf in almost every offensive category. She landed more punches than Metcalf (96 to 64) and had a better connect percentage (22 to 9). Yoshida landed almost three times as many jabs (49 to 17) and connected on about twice as many body punches (30 to 16). She outlanded Metcalf in eight of the ten rounds, with the other two being draws. Metcalf threw more punches than Yoshida (650 to 418) but missed 91 percent of them.
“I felt strongly that Miyo won 97-93 or 96-94, however, I never expected seven to three or nine to one against us,” said Yoshida’s manager, New York City-based attorney Keith Sullivan, who watched the fight from ringside. “I was shocked and hurt for Miyo. She remained stoic, congratulated her opponent, and came over to me and said, “How? How?”.
All three judges at ringside awarded Metcalf’s aggressiveness and volume punching over Yoshida’s accuracy, power punching, and better defense. Judge Max DeLuca had it 96-94, Judge Robert Perez scored it 97-93, and Judge Robin Taylor had it 99-91, in which she inexplicitly gave Yoshida only one round (the tenth).
In rounds one, six, and eight, Yoshida outlanded Metcalf by more than double the punches, yet she lost all three rounds on the judges’ scorecards. If she had won those rounds on judges’ DeLuca and Perez’s scorecards, she would have prevailed by a majority decision. The crowd at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York, also disagreed with the decision as they loudly booed after Metcalf was announced the winner.
She controlled the fight by landing harder and more accurate punches as she effectively darted in and out of Metcalf’s offensive range despite being the smaller fighter by four inches. Yoshida dictated the action with well-timed jabs and multiple punch combinations, particularly in the last minute of each round. While Metcalf threw more punches, most did not land, and many hit nothing but air, mainly due to Yoshida’s impenetrable defense.
Yoshida connected on a hard right hook to Metcalf’s body and head in the first round. She landed a powerful right jab to Metcalf’s head that knocked her off balance towards the end of the second. Metcalf came back in the third round. Yoshida took over the fourth, landing many left-right jabs to Metcalf’s head.
Metcalf controlled the fifth round, but Yoshida took over the sixth, as she connected on several hard chopping right jabs and backed Metcalf up throughout the round. Yoshida landed multiple strong left-right jabs and hook combinations to Metcalf’s body and head in the seventh, eighth, and ninth rounds. Yoshida staggered Metcalf from two big right hooks to the head just as the tenth round ended.
Yoshida dropped to 17-5 and lost her IBF bantamweight belt in her first world title defense. She won the title (in her second division) in her previous outing (last December) against one-loss Ebanie Bridges, who was making her second world title defense, via a ten-round unanimous decision. Yoshida, who took that fight on less than two weeks’ notice, dominated Bridges, as she only lost five rounds on the judges’ three scorecards. She fought Bridges a month after losing to Metcalf in their first bout.
Metcalf defeated Yoshida via a ten-round unanimous decision for the vacant IBF Inter-Continental bantamweight title a year ago. Metcalf won by a slightly wider margin on the three judges’ scorecards (99-91, 98-92, and 96-94) than their most recent fight, and again, one judge, Marcel Varela, gave Yoshida just one round, despite Yoshida once again outlanding Metcalf and controlling the action in the bout.
The forty-year-old orthodox fighter from Dallas, Texas, won her first world title in her first attempt. Metcalf improved to 14-4-1, 2 KOs. She has won four in a row (including beating Yoshida in back-to-back fights) and is unbeaten in her last five bouts and fourteen of her last fifteen fights, dating back to 2017, when she started her career 2-3.
“I formally requested the IBF to order a mandatory rematch between Yoshida and Metcalf. I provided the IBF with the video of the fight, Compubox statistics, and analysis of the fight as a basis for supporting that request. They acknowledged the filing and stated that it is being investigated,” said Attorney Sullivan, who has worked with Yoshida for the last year and manages female middleweight prospect Nisa Rodriguez (2-0), up-and-coming heavyweight Pryce Taylor (4-0, 2 KOs), and co-manages world-rated welterweight contender Paddy Donovan (14-0, 11 KOs). “We are still waiting for the IBF’s decision. In the meantime, Yoshida is already asking me to get her back in the ring with someone, anyone, but preferably Metcalf or another title holder in the division.”
Yoshida, who has fought professionally for the last ten years, obtained her first world title in 2019 over one-loss Casey Croft for the vacant WBO super flyweight belt. She won all but one round on the judges’ three scorecards. The thirty-six-year-old orthodox boxer made one world title defense against Li Peng Shi before losing her belt to fellow Japanese fighter Tomoko Okuda. She regained her title in their rematch six months later but lost it again to another Japanese boxer, Tamao Ozawa, in her next bout. Yoshida received the 2023 Most Inspirational Female Fighter award from The Ring Magazine.
She has spent most of her boxing career fighting in Tokyo and Kagoshima, Japan, where she was born and raised. She won the Japanese and Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation bantamweight titles and defended those belts from 2017 to 2019. For the last two years, she has spent most of the year training in New York City (at the famed Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, New York), where three of her last four bouts have been.
“I am grateful for the support that I have received from people worldwide, and I look forward to their continued support as I strive to repeat as a world champion for a fourth time,” said Yoshida, through her translator, Shiwaku, who is a boxing trainer at a gym on a United States military base in Japan (since 2008), which is where he met Yoshida at one of her professional fights. “Hopefully, I can fight Metcalf again or another world champion.”
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