Takuma Inoue made it a winning start for the family on the undercard of older brother Naoya Inoue’s historic clash with Junto Nakatani today at the 55,000 capacity Tokyo Dome.
Inoue (22-2, 5 KOs) defended his WBC bantamweight title with an extremely wide unanimous-decision against his biggest name opponent in Kazuto Ioka.
The defending champion scored two early knockdowns on his way to the comprehensive victory. The judges scored the contest: 119-107, 120-106 and 118-108.
Ioka (32-5-1, 17 KOs) is now 1-3 in his last four fights having missed out on the opportunity of becoming a five-weight world champion. At 37 years-old, the seven years younger Inoue looked the far fresher of the pair the entire bout.
It was a relatively quiet opening round, but Inoue was the sharper as he started to get his jab going on a couple of occasions. There was an increase in pressure from Ioka towards the end of the session, but the veteran’s power appeared limited on the champion that had started to also control the ring.
Inoue flashed out a double jab to start the second round. Ioka was offering little more than edging forward into an offensive position, it was proving to be of little impact to Inoue’s much more varied movement and shot selection. Ioka would come forward again to close the round, but it would start his demise. Inoue moved off the ropes to land a crisp right hand to the chin, followed by a multiple shot combination to send Ioka to the canvas. Ioka was up on his feet as the bell came to his rescue.
Inoue grinned at an anxious looking Ioka to start the third. Within the opening 30 seconds, Inoue dropped his opponent with a thunderous right uppercut. Ioka jumped to his feet again, and to his credit continued to press the fight. However, Inoue was far beyond Ioka’s level today in Tokyo, going on to control the remainder of the round.
Ioka looked dejected as he took instructions from Ismael Salas during the interval. Sadly for the record-breaking Ioka, he continued to take punishment at the start of the fourth round, having his head snapped back from a speedy right hand. Ioka did land a rare left hand to bring some noise from the crowd, but the pace of Inoue’s work was far too much for him.
Inoue continued his dominance into round five, landing his jab at will and dictating the pace of the fight on the back-foot. The rhythm was back from Inoue, who had seen his opponent show some very slight glimpses of comeback in the previous round.
Ioka pressed forward for the opening minute of the sixth round, but Inoue dealt with the rare attack with his superior speed and footwork. The champion landed a nice uppercut as Ioka attacked him in the corner in the pick of his work.
Inoue would eat another good left hand from Ioka to begin round seven, but there was no venom in his shots. Inoue quickly turned the tables to let loose a pid combination as another knockdown loomed. It wouldn’t come as the pace dipped a little in the final minute.
The fight had already turned into a white wash for Inoue as round eight started, Ioka continued to come forward. The output had waned slightly, but Inoue’s shot selection and agility saw another easy 10-9 round banked. The same came true for the tenth as Ioka offered nothing for a full three minutes.
Inoue landed a solid right hand to the head to open the tenth, following up with two good shots to the body seconds later.The question at this stage, was whether Inoue would continue carefully or go for the stoppage. A spearing left hand jab drew blood from Ioka’s nose at the session closed.
With six minutes to go Ioka needed a miracle, it was some surprise he had made it this late into the contest. Ioka’s prayers didn’t appear to be answered anytime soon as Inoue landed a big left hook. Ioka pressed on regardless, attempting to press Inoue to the corner. However, a composed Inoue motioned the struggling Ioka forward.
In the twelfth and final round Ioka pressed on again, but Inoue sat down on his feet to land a big combination. Inoue continued to the end with a little added emphasis to make an easy second defense of his WBC title.
