By Joe Koizumi
WBO 115-pound champion Kazuto Ioka (29-2, 15 KOs), 115, Japan, decisively avenged his previous loss to Filipino veteran WBO #1 Donnie Nietes (43-2-6, 33 KOs), 114.5, by a unanimous decision (118-110, 117-111, 120-108) over twelve speedy rounds on Wednesday in Tokyo, Japan.
It was such a tactical fight of the four-division titlists as a couple of Miguel Cantos kept outboxing and countering each other, but it was Ioka, 33, that displayed more aggressiveness in throwing combinations upstairs and downstairs all the way. Nietes, 40, showed only his cleverness in averting Ioka’s versatile combinations, and failed to retaliate with more effective punches in return.
More to come…
This is how you would have expected this fight to play out. Nietes is past his best and Ioka is still one of the best in that division, but Nietes is too experienced to be stopped. Two future Hall of Famers.
So Estrada is fighting Franco. I think Ancajas exercised his rematch clause against Martinez, Bam just announced his next fight on Canelo’s undercard and SSR just lost to Bam. Chocolatito has nothing scheduled though and Ioka – Gonzalez on one of those big NYE shows in Japan would be awesome.
Was happy to read Nietes did ok and did not take any punishment, 40 y is old for boxing.
It is, especially for those lighter weight classes where they give and take so many punches.
Around 2011 or 2012 a fight against Roman Gonzalez was offered to team Ioka, and they said no right away, I guess this time Ioka has slightly an edge over Gonzalez, but who knows, at this point is a beautiful matchup between two world class veterans
I remember that Burucho and a decade later, they’re still two of the best in the world. How cool would if be if they got that fight together now, all these years later!
I don’t understand how they came up with this score when Ioka was knocked down in round 2