Iwasa finishes Servania in overweight bout
By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda
This is a bizarre but true story. On October 25, at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan, former IBF 122-pound champ Ryosuke Iwasa was supposed to fight ex-world title challenger Genesis Servania, a durable Filipino who battled Oscar Valdez in a grueling fight in US in 2018, with the contract weight of 126-pound featherweight limit over ten rounds. A fiasco happened about a week before their confrontation, as Servania complained of his incapability of making weight. Iwasa, a southpaw veteran, was so much eager to fight before his more than 500 adherents despite Servania’s reported overweight because he lately kept fighting abroad and his last appearance here was four years ago when he forfeited his IBF junior feather belt to TJ Doheny in Tokyo. Both parties then agreed on the raised weight of 59 kilogram (some 130 pounds), but Servania still claimed he would not be able to make it. Just in order to make the fight realize, Iwasa agreed to amend the contract weight and then it was again raised to 62 kg (136.75 lbs).
On October 24, at the official weigh-in of the JBC office, the finally amended contract weight submitted to the Commission was 62 kg (136.75 lbs), but Servania scaled in at 62.6 kg, while Iwasa 62.25 kg—both overweight. Iwasa, at his second trip to the scale, easily made 61.8 kg (136.25 lbs), but Servania, though given two hours, gave up reducing weight any more with the mutual promise that he should make weight under 64 kg (141 lbs) at 6 PM on the fight day. Servania barely did it to make himself under 141 pounds.
Iwasa (28-4, 18 KOs), 136.25, scored a knockout over Servania (36-4, 16 KOs), 138, at 1:46 of the fourth round in a scheduled ten. The Filipino fought better than expected despite his reportedly impaired condition due to severe reduction of weight, but Iwasa’s combination finally dropped him for the count. They fought more than ten pounds over the original contract weight of 126. Incredible and shameful!
BoxRec: Ryosuke Iwasa
BoxRec: Genesis Servania
In the semi-windup, Japanese speedster Taku Kuwabara (11-1, 6 KOs), 112, wrested the OPBF (Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation) flyweight belt by winning a unanimous decision (117-111 twice, 116-112) over defending champ Giemel Magramo (26-3, 21 KOs), 112, over twelve.
World-rated Filipino 105-pounder ArAr Andales fought to a technical draw with ex-OPBF Tsubasa Koura because of the latter’s deteriorated eyesight after an accidental butt at 0:38 of the second session in a scheduled eight under 106 pounds.
Former OPBF bantamweight champ Kazuki Nakajima came off the canvas twice and scored a come-from-behind TKO victory over Thailand’s Chaiwat Buatkrathok at 2:18 of the eighth and final round.
Promoter: Hideyuki Ohashi.
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