Seiya Tsutsumi won his first world title, Kenshiro Teraji won another, and more from today in Tokyo.
A quick rundown of what we saw today from Tokyo!
Seiya Tsutsumi UD-12 Takuma Inoue
A pretty solid upset here, as Tsutsumi (12-0-2, 8 KO) stepped up to world level for the first time in his first 12-round fight, and he just flat beat Inoue (20-2, 5 KO), who wasn’t flat or anything, just out-fought.
Tsutsumi, 28, was able to get Inoue to play his game for most of this fight, which just didn’t pan out for the defending champion, who lost his WBA bantamweight title to the underdog on scores of 114-113, 115-112, and 117-110. Inoue, also 28, was ruled down in round 11.
The loss snaps a seven-fight win streak for Inoue, who had really looked like he’d been coming into his own, and establishes the very entertaining Tsutsumi is a notable name at 118 lbs.
Kenshiro Teraji TKO-11 Cristofer Rosales
Teraji, 32, wins the vacant WBC flyweight title, claiming a world title in a second weight class. “The Amazing Boy” pretty much dominated Rosales (37-7, 22 KO) in this one, with the fight stopped right after the bell to start round 11, when the ringside physician checked Rosales’ pretty clearly broken nose and halted the bout.
Teraji (24-1, 15 KO) jumps right into league with the best at flyweight, this is a proven fighter, exciting to watch, and a would be a great matchup for anyone at 112. Rosales, 30, showed a lot of moxie just to hang around in this fight, because Kenshiro was pretty dominant throughout, and it was really Rosales’ toughness that got him through even to the 11th round.
Seigo Yuri Akui SD-12 Thananchai Charunphak
Scores were 115-113 for Charunphak and 115-113 and 117-111 for Akui. Akui (21-2-1, 11 KO) retains his WBA flyweight title with the win, but the Thai challenger Charunphak (25-2, 15 KO) can fight.
Thought this was a solid Akui win, and a little tough to get to seven rounds for Charunphak, but it was competitive and I wasn’t surprised about the score spread, either, a lot of the earlier rounds were debatable, or at least I can see how they would be seen that way.
It’s a second successful title defense for Akui, after he took the belt from Artem Dalakian in January.
Shokichi Iwata TKO-3 Jairo Noriega
For about a day, Masamichi Yabuki was technically undisputed champion of the junior flyweight division, as he beat Sivenathi Nontshinga on Saturday for the IBF title, and the other three belts were vacant.
No longer! Iwata (14-1, 11 KO) stopped Spain’s Noriega (14-1, 3 KO) at the end of round three, after maybe dropping the first two rounds and also suffering a cut on a clash of heads, winning the vacant WBO title. Iwata, 28, put Noriega down with about 30 seconds or so left in round three, and Noriega was clearly not on the best legs when he got up to continue, but it looked like he would survive the round.
Instead, right before the bell, Iwata dropped him again, Noriega went down face-first, and referee Raul Caiz Jr called a halt to the fight, which was a fair enough call. Noriega got himself into trouble being a bit too wild, and the hard-punching Iwata made him pay.
A fifth straight win for Iwata, and his first world title, after coming up short against Jonathan “Bomba” Gonzalez for this same belt just under two years ago.
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