By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda

Once-beaten prospects in their previous bouts celebrated their manager/promoter ex-world champ Hideyuki Ohashi’s fifty-seventh birthday with first-round demolitions on Tuesday in Tokyo, Japan. Having forfeited his OPBF bantam belt to Keita Kurihara via spectacular stoppage last October, lefty hard-puncher Kazuki Nakajima (11-1-1, 9 KOs), 123, moved up to the 122-pound category and displayed a one-punch knockout over Shohei Kawashima (18-7-2, 4 KOs), 123.5, at just 3:00 of the first round in a scheduled eight. His stablemate Taku Kuwahara (9-1, 5 KOs), 112, also came back well from his previous failure to win the national flyweight belt from world-rated Yuri Akui on a tenth and final-round stoppage last July, and halted Takashi Hisano (6-6-1, 3 KOs), 112, at just 0:32 into the opening session in a semi-final eight.

The spectators at the Korakuen Hall were stunned to watch Ryuya Tsugawa (9-1, 5 KOs), 122, from Osaka, wrest the Japanese youth 122-pound belt by stopping Haruki Ishikawa (9-4, 7 KOs), 121.75, at 2:44 of the seventh session in a scheduled eight. Tsugawa, quite unheralded, looked so vastly talented with his speed and skills that he lopsidedly battered the hard-hitting defending champ into the referee’s intervention due to Ishikawa’s cornerman’s tossing in the towel. One of the witnesses, “Monster” Naoya Inoue, so impressed by Tsugawa’s brilliant performance, asked his manager Ohashi to employ the youngster as his sparring partner in the nearest future.

Promoter: Ohashi Promotions.

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