By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda

Fast-moving and quick-punching, unbeaten Japanese Ken Shiro (16-0, 9 KOs), 107.75, successfully made his sixth defense of the WBC light-flyweight belt when he swept the first three rounds with his hit-and-run tactics and scored a fine TKO victory over top-ranked Filipino Jonathan Taconing (28-4-1, 22 KOs), 108, at 1:00 into the fourth session on Friday in Osaka, Japan.

The baby-faced champ, 27, kept whipping the hard-punching but less accurate Filipino from the start as he made best use of his faster footwork that obviously kept Taconing from connecting vaunted solid southpaw lefts. Taconing occasionally tried to connect with his roundhouse lefts to the shifty champ, who, however, continually made himself a moving target.

The third saw an accidental butt that produced a gash over the right eyebrow of Taconing with a point deducted from the uncut champ due to the WBC rules. In round four, Ken sharply connected with a vicious right followed by a solid left hook, which badly decked the game Filipino to the deck. Taconing managed to raise himself and attempted to go on, but his legs apparently betrayed his fighting spirit with referee Frank Garza (US) dully calling a halt at a right time.

Prior to the stoppage, the tallies were rather competitive: June-Bae Lim (Korea) and Noppharat Sricharoen (Thailand) both 28-28, Fernando Barbosa (US) 29-27 for Ken Shiro.

People are now talking on a possible unification bout between WBC champ Ken Shiro (16-0) and WBA ruler Hiroto Kyoguchi (13-0) since they each say to be eager to square off with both belts on the line. But it doesn’t seem so easy business-wise and politics-wise to materialize the Ken-Kyoguchi bout. Ken, an excellent footworker hitting without getting hit, has a quite different style from Kyoguchi, a hard-puncher dependent on infighting in the close quarter. Even if not this year, we believe it will be realized sooner or later with people’s high expectations.

WBC supervisor: Duane Ford (US).

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