By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda

Unbeaten Japanese southpaw puncher Mikito Nakano (11-0, 10 KOs; amateur mark 68-9, 48 KOs), 126, impressively acquired the vacant OPBF featherweight belt when he connected with vicious body bombardments to finish Filipino Brix Piala (9-2, 3 KOs), 125, for the count at 0:34 into the fourth round in a scheduled twelve on Saturday in Tokyo, Japan.

Nakano, from the start, aggressively attacked the cautious Filipino southpaw and quickly decked him with a left uppercut to the belly just before the gong to end the third session. Swarming over the still damaged opponent in the next round, Nakano landed wicked shots exclusively to the midsection to have him down in agony for the fatal ten. Teiken gym now dominates both Asian regional feather champs in WBO AP’s Kenji Fujita (7-0, 3 KOs; amateur 153-21) and OPBF’s Nakano. Both are worth watching.

Promoter: Teiken Promotions.

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