Rolly Matsushita defends his gold by by knocking out Ji-Hwan Lee - Boxing news
Rolly Matsushita, the current Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation bantamweight champion, successfully defended his gold for the second time in continuity, against the Korean Ji-Hwan Lee, the former Korean super bantamweight champion, in a 12-round bout
on March 18, 2012.
The event was organised and promoted by Hatanaka Promotions and the ring for the pay-per-view was stretched at International Conference Hall situated in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. The championship bout headlined the event whereas the skirmish between Shota Hayashi
and Kojiro Takada was given the responsibility to co-headline the event.
Rolly has been in a total 39 bouts and came out victorious in 29. He has collected 17 of his wins by knockout and is the number one Philippines bantamweight. The 28-year-old secures number six position in the world rankings and has won the OPBF super bantamweight,
PABA flyweight, OPBF flyweight, and Philippines Games & Amusement Board (GAB) flyweight titles.
The orthodox Rolly grabbed the OPBF bantamweight title against Malcolm Tunacao and from then onwards defended his gold four times. Matsushita, later on forfeited the title to take on Anselmo Moreno for the WBA World bantamweight title.
Rolly’s attempt at the apex divisional title went in vain and he lost the 12-round skirmish via unanimous decision. The Filipino number one then nailed Wethya Sakmuangklang to become the OPBF super bantamweight champion but unfortunately in the next engagement
against Hiromasa Ohashi lost it.
His title and bout loss to Ohashi was the last one and since then Rolly was on a four-bout win streak. The Filipino pounder snatched the OPBF bantamweight gold by knocking out Zerofit Jerope Zuiyama in the eighth round.
Ji-Hwan Lee, on the other hand, was entering in his career’s eighth bout. His defeat from the fists of a veteran was evident. The young Korean Lee had collected just five wins and luckily became the owner of Korean super bantamweight title.
But the 21-year-old was unable to elongate his reign and lost the title to Bum-Soo Kim in just the next bout. Rolly did not take much time to obliterate and flatten Lee on the ring floor and knocked his senses out in just 90 seconds of the first round.
The result of the bout was an expected one since Lee was just a rookie in front of Rolly and the latter took full advantage of his inexperience and least resilience. Rolly now has 30 wins and 18 of them by knockout whereas the Korean number one bantamweight
has collected his career’s second defeat and first ever by knockout.
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