By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda

Japanese super-flyweight champ Ryuichi Funai (28-7, 19 KOs), 115, kept his national belt by a unanimous technical decision (68-65 twice, 67-66) over mandatory challenger Takayuki Okumoto (18-8-3, 8 KOs), 114.75, from Osaka, because of the champ’s bad bleeding at 1:32 of the seventh round in a scheduled ten on the undercard of a world title twinbill on Sunday in Tokyo, Japan.

Funai made his initial defense since dethroning Kenta Nakagawa via seventh round TKO this March, but it wasn’t so easy as he began bleeding profusely from the early stage of the bout. Funai had the southpaw challenger at bay with a flurry of punches in the seventh, when the ref Asao finally decided to take a technical decision after having his gash examined by the ring physician several times.