Boxing Challenge; Teraji knocks out Kyoguchi, unifies titles.

  Early Tuesday morning on the East Coast, a terrific card from Saitama, Japan rewarded those who either got up from bed early or stayed up all night with three excellent fights in the boxing challenge.

In the main event, Kenshiro Teraji knocked out Hiroto Kyoguchi in the seventh round to unify the WBA and WBC light flyweight titles.

Teraji is listed as the same height and only a half-inch longer in reach but the WBC champion seemed taller and rangier than his WBA counterpart and when Teraji used that size from the outside, he couldn't miss Kyoguchi with the jab or right hand.

What often makes good fights is when one fighter ignores his advantages and decides to fight and when Teraji made that decision, the fight was quite entertaining with Kyoguchi having more than his share of moments.

Round five may have a claim for the round of the year as Teraji knocked down Kyoguchi and appeared to be on the edge of a stoppage before appearing to punch himself out a bit before Kyoguchi landed a big right hand that had Teraji on the run and when the bell rang to end the round, Kyoguchi looked to be the fighter in better shape.

Teraji calmly boxed in the sixth and came out for the seventh with a second wind, dominating the round and knocking down Kyoguchi late in the round with the referee ending the fight without a count.

I had Teraji ahead 58-55 at the time of the stoppage as Teraji cemented himself as the best light flyweight in the world for the time being and he may have a chance to add another title in the division next year.

Teraji's opponent would be WBO champion Jonathan Gonzalez, who held off a strong early attack from Shokichi Iwata to retain his belt via unanimous decision.

Iwata came forward for the entire fight but was in only his tenth pro fight and when the longer reach of Gonzalez began to make the difference in the middle rounds, Iwata didn't have very much to answer with other than aggression.

Gonzalez has been knocked out in all three of his defeats but against Kenshiro Teraji, he will be hard-pressed to avoid the power of the Japanese star.

I scored Gonzalez a winner at 116-112 which was the same as two judges with a dissenter at 117-111 for Gonzalez.

Junto Nakatani vacated his WBO flyweight title to move to 115 pounds earlier in the week and he earned a unanimous decision over former WBA and IBF mini-flyweight/strawweight champion Francisco Rodriguez in a rough and tumble matchup.

Rodriguez played the role of the wily veteran heel with clutching, grabbing, and other borderline tactics that would cost him one point in the seventh round.

Nakatani will be better for the experience but he still deserved the decision as he landed the better punches.

Nakatani's win on the cards were 99-90, 98-91, and 97-92 with my score the same as the middle ledger.

Nakatani could be facing the winner of the WBA-WBO junior bantamweight unification between Joshua Franco and Kazuto Ioka, a fight that would be huge in Japan, should Ioka emerge as the winner.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 181 Pts (4) 

Ramon Malpica: 154 Pts (0)

Vince Samano: 148 Pts (3) 

Boxing Challenge: Kyoguchi Bloodies Bermudez

    Hiroto Kyoguchi used an impressive offensive arsenal to batter and rip open the skin of Esteban Bermudez for eight rounds before various cuts on the brave Bermudez forced the fight to be stopped in the eighth round in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Kyoguchi retained his WBA light flyweight title in the main event of the  Matchroom/DAZN card that was his mandatory defense against Bermudez, who became the top contender and winner of a now-defunct minor title after an upset victory over Carlos Canizales last year.

Bermudez bled from the mouth and nose in the first round and would sustain a cut over his right eye from Kyoguchi's punches and a slice along his hairline from an early-round clash of heads and showed a tremendous amount of courage in fighting through what announcer Corey Erdman called a "Crimson Mask", which made me laugh as I remembered Gordon Solie using that term when someone was bleeding on the old "Georgia Championship Wrestling" show on WTBS.

Kyoguchi landed right uppercut after right uppercut that couldn't miss Bermudez and with much of the fight held at close range, the champion won almost every exchange despite the toughness of Bermudez but it was never easy work for Kyoguchi, who won almost every round despite losing a point in the sixth round for head clashes, which seemed like a poor decision by the referee as both fighters were charging into each other and another point lost in the seventh round.

The seventh-round cost Kyoguchi a knockdown as Bermudez was on his way to the floor when the champion landed two punches to the back of the head and after the deserved deduction, Kyoguchi had watched a 10-8 round turn into a 9-9 round on the scorecards.

Kyoguchi left his corner in a rage to start round eight and with a violent volley drove Bermudez back into the ropes and the referee determined the challenger unable to continue less than half a minute into the eighth round.

The best fight that can be made in the light flyweight division right now would be an all-Japanese unification fight with the talented WBC champion Ken Shiro in what would be a guaranteed all-action encounter.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 101 Pts (2)

Ramon Malpica: 86 Pts (1)
Vince Samano: 82 Pts (0)

Boxing Challenge: Estrada escapes Chocolatito

  Occasionally, boxing gets it right.

They put the best two fighters in a division in the ring and they deliver all that a fan could want- skills, action, and drama all come together, and even though it seems that many are disappointed in the judging, there can be no doubt that Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman Gonzalez put forth a classic for the ages with Estrada keeping his WBC junior bantamweight title and adding the WBA title held by Gonzalez to his collection.

There is a bit of controversy, as it seems that the majority feel that the split decision that was given to Estrada should have been owned by Gonzalez and there are even a few that are using the term "robbery".

I scored the fight even at 114-114, so I didn't have a problem with 115-113 for either fighter as two judges saw the fight, but the 117-111 tally for Estrada was extremely bad and has taken a little shine off a tremendous fight among boxing's followers.

I've written before when I score fights as a draw that sometimes the scorecards wind up even, but you have a "feel" that one fighter has the edge ( one example was Oleksandr Usyk vs Mairis Briedis) despite the scorecard.

In the case of this fight, it had the feel of Gonzalez nosing Estrada out and the Compubox stats did have Gonzalez throwing more and landing more in a give-and-take battle.

I haven't examined the official cards round by round, but often when you see a scorecard that is out of whack as the one offending judge scored, it happens because they either already have it in their mind what is going to happen or they simply really like one style or the other and that fighter is given the benefit of the doubt in every close round.

Still, I hate the calls of robbery.

I think the 9-3 Gonzalez cards around the internet are just as bad as the official 9-3 Estrada card and while some will say a close fight can be a robbery, I usually disagree with one exception.

Occasionally, you will see a 7-5 fight that didn't have any close rounds and each fighter clearly won their rounds.

In that case, I can see that, but this fight wasn't that way.

Estrada controlled the fight when he was able to move Gonzalez backward, when Gonzalez came forward or stood evenly with Estrada, Chocolatito took command.

Estrada wasn't always willing to commit to this tactic and while it didn't hurt on the scorecards, it did cause fans to give Gonzalez more benefits of the doubt in the close rounds.

Estrada will be facing the third member of this 115-pound triangle in Srisaket Sor Rungvisai next in a mandatory fight.

Rungvisai stepped aside to allow the unification fight to take place and the Thai has split two fights against Estrada winning the first and losing the second with his WBC title with it.

As for Gonzalez, one idea put forth by Carlos Toro (@carlostoromedia) on Twitter sounds great to me with Gonzalez facing Japan's Kazuto Ioka, who is coming off a big win over Kosei Tanaka on New Year's Eve, for Ioka's WBO title on the same card as Estrada-Rungvisai with the winners then meeting in the following fight for three of the four titles in the division.

That would be a terrific plan and would offer three intriguing matchups and perhaps the losers could be enticed to square off as well.

No matter your thoughts on the rightful winner, it's rare to have an elite fight with all the trimmings in boxing and even more rare to have both fighters behave so classy following the fight as well.

I'm all for doing this one again in the future.

The main undercard bout saw Hiroto Kyoguchi retain his WBA light flyweight title after challenger Axel Vega suffered a hand injury in the fifth round and was unable to continue.

The unheralded Vega was doing better than expected against Kyoguchi through four rounds by aggressively pushing the heavily favored champion backward, but after landing a right hand in the fifth round to the top of Kyoguchi's head, Vera crumpled in pain to the ropes and the referee quickly stopped the bout.

The match was surprisingly competitive, but I was a little disappointed in the performance of Kyoguchi, who I was excited to see in his American debut.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored three points on the DAZN/Matchroom card to move the total points to 23-22.

I'll be back later with the Showtime results and over the next few days, I'll be doing a rewatch of Estrada-Gonzalez, and planned posts on the losses of Marvin Hagler and Joe Tait in recent days...