By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda

OPBF flyweight champ WBA#6 Taku Kuwahara (12-1, 7 KOs), 113.5, made very short of Mexican Jose Rivas (18-14-4, 10 KOs), 113, halting him in just 51 seconds of the opening session of a scheduled non-title eight on Tuesday in Tokyo, Japan. Having come back from a tenth-round annihilation in his crack at Seigo Yuri Akui’s national flyweight belt in 2021 and captured the OPBF title from Filipino Giemel Magramo last October, the speedster Taku stunned the crowd with his quick stoppage of the more experienced Mexican veteran. His opening shot, a vicious left hook, decked Rivas and the same punch again sent him flat with the referee Sugiyama calling a halt without counting because of the impact of the loser’s second visit to the canvas.

The semi-windup saw unbeaten novice Jinya Yamaguchi (3-0, 2 KOs), 114.75, acquire the vacant Japanese youth super-fly belt by a hard-fought majority nod (77-75 twice, 76-76) over Ryutaro Nakagaki (3-1-2, 2 KOs), 115, over sizzling eight rounds. They kept swapping punches from the start to the end with Yamaguchi having an upper hand with his effectiveness of combinations.

Promoter: Ohashi Promotions.

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