By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda

Up-and-coming hard-puncher WBA#10 Jin Sasaki (15-1-1, 14 KOs), 146.5, successfully kept his WBO Asia Pacific welterweight belt as he put on a give-and-take performance and finally flattened WBO#8 Keita Obara (26-5-1, 23 KOs), 146.75, at 1:13 of the third round in a scheduled twelve on Saturday in Tokyo, Japan.  In an encounter of the KO artists Sasaki, from the outset, took the initiative to have the veteran Obara on the defensive.  In round two it was Obara that connected with a solid right counter, dropping the wild aggressor to the deck.  The third, however, witnessed Sasaki, fifteen years his junior at 21, explode a vicious left uppercut to the side of the belly, flooring Obara in agony.  Obara barely beat the count, but absorbed a wicked right to the jaw to be flattened so badly that the ref didn’t bother to count at his second knockdown (to be registered as TKO by the JBC).

Obara is a veteran campaigner who had an unsuccessful world title shot against Eduardo Troyanovsky via second round TKO in Moscow in 2016.  The muscular hard-puncher Keita, since then, acquired the WBO AP and national belts, but renounced them all to contrate on this crack against the younger regional champ.

Promoter: Teiken Promotions.

BoxRec: Jin Sasaki
BoxRec: Keita Obara

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