Kazuto Ioka unanimously dethrones Akira Yaegashi to grab WBA world minimumweight title – Boxing News
Kazuto Ioka, the current WBC minimumweight champion, achieved yet another milestone of his career by grabbing a unanimous decision win over fellow countryman Akira Yaegashi, the former WBA world minimumweight champion, in a 12-round bout held on June 20,
2012.
The duo co-headlined the pay-per-view organised and promoted by Ioka Promotions. The ring for the bout was set up at Bodymaker Colosseum, Osaka, Japan and the showdown also witnessed Ryo Miyazaki defend his OPBF light flyweight title against Michael Landero
while constituting the main event.
Ioka, 23, was entering the ring with a bit disadvantage on his side. The young Japanese proud was in his career’s 10th bout. Since the inception of his professional career, Kazuto has never lost even a single bout and has nailed six of his opponents by knocking
them out cold.
The bout could be dubbed as ‘the toughest test’ for Ioka as he was colliding with a man who has also built himself quite a reputation for being a quality pugilist. Kazuto’s Wednesday night opponent, Akira, was entering his career’s 18th bout.
The 29-year-old former OPBF minimumweight champion has collected eight of his total 15 wins by knockout and therefore not only possessed a better knockout ratio but also decent win proficiency as well.
Despite the fact that Ioka was statistically overshadowed by Akira’s resume, the former had a technical upper hand. Kazuto possessed the height and therefore the substantial reach advantage which enabled him to throw jabs from a considerable safe distance.
The bout, which had both men’s titles on the line, kicked off in a very exciting manner. From the very first round it was Ioka who set the pace and in an intimidating way gifted Akira a swollen left eye.
At the end of the first four rounds, both men tallied each other’s scores on the score card. With the start of the fifth round, things started to change and the bout was dominated by Akira who started to penetrate Ioka’s strong defence and connected substantial
well targeted jabs.
Kazuto made a comeback in the sixth round by using his agility and footwork hence emphatically outwitting Akira in almost all the basic facets of the sport. At the end of the 12-round showdown, it was Ioka who grabbed Akira’s WBA world minimumweight by collecting
115-114, 115-113, and 115-113 scores.
The above mentioned scores clearly indicate that the duo gave a serious tough time to each other. The winner Ioka while sharing his thoughts after the bout stated, “I really appreciate people’s spiritual supports, with which I could win this most important
game of my life. Yaegashi was strong and durable, so I had a very tough fight.”
Akira, who lost his WBA gold, commented that his swollen eye changed everything for him and stated, “Without such a badly swollen eye I could have shown a better performance, but I did my best.”
With this win, Ioka has successfully defended his streak and grabbed his 10th career win whereas Akira has received his third career loss.
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