By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda
WBC light-flyweight champ Kenshiro Teraji (20-1, 12 KOs), 107.25, impressively unified the 108-pound belts as he controlled the fight from the outset, dropped WBA super champ Hiroto Kyoguchi (16-1, 11 KOs), 107.75, with a solid right in the fifth and finally floored him again en route to a fine stoppage at 2:36 of the seventh round on Tuesday in Saitama, Japan. Some 11,500 spectators were in attendance at the Saitama Super Arena in an adjacent prefecture to Tokyo.
Now it is the internet age when people can watch the same title bout live at the same time all over the world. If so, this local scribe may show the difference of data on this unification bout. Do you know the following? Both Teraji and Kyoguchi were amateur university boxers. Teraji, Kansai university, met Kyoguchi, Osaka University of Commerce, four times with the former victorious three to one in four encounters. Their amateur marks were: Teraji 58-16, 20 stoppages, while Kyoguchi 52-14, 8 stoppages. For your reference, Teraji once faced Naoya Inoue with Monster scoring a third-round stoppage in 2009 (when Teraji, two years his senior, and Inoue were both high school students).
Back to the future, now. The WBC titlist Teraji displayed his favorite hit-and-run strategy from the start, sweeping the first three rounds with ease since the WBA kingpin Kyoguchi cautiously kept watching the aggressive rival’s mobility. The fourth saw Kenshiro accelerating his attack even on the gloves of Hiroto, who, however, began to retaliate with good combinations.
The fifth round may be a good candidate of Round of the Year. It was Teraji that beautifully connected with a solid right to the neck of Kyoguchi, who hit the deck with heavy damage. Hiroto barely resumed fighting, but remained defensive with his guard tight to cover his face. Teraji freely throwing combinations to Kyoguchi, the latter abruptly started furious retaliation and had the WBC champ retreating. The WBA champ battered him with a flurry of punches so that we then thought the tide had turned in favor of Kyoguchi, but the bell came to his rescue.
The sixth was a very bizarre round since each cautiously utilized the three minutes in order without exchanging punches each other to remove the bad damage that they each had suffered in round five. Kenshiro kept stick-and-move tactics, while Hiroto kept his peek-a-boo guard.
The seventh session witnessed the end of the affair. Teraji swarmed over the still shaky Kyoguchi with solid combos followed by a smashing right, which had him staggering to the ropes and fell downward. Then, referee Michiaki Someya made a very well-timed halt to save Kyoguchi from further punishment. It’s a beautiful victory for Teraji that unified the WBC and WBA belts to his credit.
The brilliant winner Teraji said, “Kyoguchi was strong, but I had a confidence to defeat him. Now I wish to face Bomba Gonzalez to unify another world belt.”
The crestfallen loser Kyoguchi said, “Teraji was very strong as expected. His jabs and straight rights were much stronger than I thought. I did my best and wish to take a rest.”
For Japanese fight fans there was a sort of disappointment. We had expected a much more competitive fight such as Hiroto Ioka versus Akira Yaegashi for the WBC/WBA 105-pound unification with Ioka victorious by a close but unanimous decision in Osaka in 2012. Unexpectedly this unification bout resulted in a too lopsided bout.
Prior to the dramatic stoppage, all the Japanese officials scored: Kazunobu Asao 60-54, Yuji Fukuchi and Nobuto Ikehara both 60-53, all in Teraji’s favor. Kenshiro is the little son of former OPBF light heavyweight champ 6’3” Hisashi Teraji (20-1-3, 11 KOs), now 58, can be proud of. He is also the big pride of our Japanese fight fans.
Promoter: Teiken Promotions.
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