By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Naoki Fukuda

Unbeaten Japanese lightweight champion, WBO#7. IBF#15 Shuichiro Yoshino (14-0, 11 KOs), 135, successfully kept his national belt when he halted JBC#10 Shuma Nakazato (10-2-3, 7 KOs), 134.5, from Okinawa, because of a nasty cut at 2:20 of the sixth session on Thursday in Tokyo, Japan. Yoshino, making his seventh defense, took a solid right cross of the ambitious challenger, the son of former OPBF 122-pound ruler Shigeru who had three unsuccessful cracks against Oscar Larios twice (2003, 2004) and Mahyar Monshipour (2005), in the first round, but he quickly regained his rhythm and range from the second onward. The busy-punching Yoshino, 29, accelerated his attack to demonstrate his experience, but the hard-punching Nakazato, 24, occasionally scored with a solid shot at a time. After the fifth, the open scoring system indicated the champ leading: all 49-47. A laceration caused by the champ’s legal shots in the fourth became worsened as the contest progressed, and the ref finally declared a halt to save the younger loser.

Promoter: Misako Promotions.

Attendance: 735 (with the JBC’s regulation at the Korakuen Hall).

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