Boxing Challenge: Teraji, Nakatani retain titles

   Early Monday morning in the United States on ESPN+, two champions retained their titles in Tokyo, Japan against solid but overmatched opposition.

In the main event, Kenshiro Teraji kept his WBA and WBC junior flyweight titles with a ninth-round knockout of former strawweight and light flyweight champion Hekkie Budler.

Budler did reasonably well in the early going as he was very aggressive and managed to back Teraji up in the first two rounds.

Teraji started to turn the tide in the third when his counters started to find their mark against the rushes of Budler, who never stopped coming forward but was less effective by the round and was hampered by a damaged right eye

Teraji stung Budler late in the ninth with a strong right and jumped on the hurt veteran along the ropes, throwing punches until Budler appeared almost ready to go down with the referee ending the fight to allow the brave former champion to end the fight on his feet.

Teraji mentioned and is expected to make a unification match next with WBO champion Jonathan Gonzalez, which was scheduled for earlier this year with Gonzalez falling out of the fight when he caught pneumonia two weeks before the fight.

In the co-feature, Junto Nakatani made a successful first defense of his WBO junior bantamweight title with a unanimous decision win over veteran Argi Cortes.

Cortes gave WBC champion and future Hall of Famer Juan Francisco Estrada a difficult fight in 2022 but he struggled against the taller Nakatani, who knocked Cortes down twice in the fifth round and once in the ninth with bodywork.

Give Cortes credit for hanging tough enough to last the distance and battling through several rocky periods but Nakatani was easily the winner by scores of  119-106 (X 2) and 118-107.

I scored Nakatani a 119-106 winner as well.

Rumors are flying of a possible unification match between Estrada and WBA champion Kazuto Ioka and Nakatani would be interested in the winner, especially if Ioka would emerge with two titles as Ioka held the same WBO title that Nakatani holds but gave it up to face then-WBA champion Joshua Franco in a rematch of a 2021 draw rather than face Nakatani in what would draw a large gate in Japan.

Boxing Challenge

TRS:  146 Pts (3)

Ramon Malpica: 133 Pts (2)

Vince Samano: 101 Pts (3)