Naoya Inoue became undisputed two-division champion in Tokyo, knocking out Marlon Tapales in the 10th round of their 122-pound championship unification.
Inoue (26-0, 23 KO) took the WBC and WBO titles from Tapales (37-4, 19 KO), adding to the WBA and IBF belts he earned earlier this year with a win about Stephen Fulton Jr.
It took Inoue two fights in the 122-pound division to go uncontested, just over a year after completely unifying the 118-pound division.
Inoue, 30, didn’t have his most exciting performance, and most of that is due to Tapales, 31, who really fought as well as anyone could have hoped.
The Filipino southpaw went down in the fourth round, but he kept trying to make adjustments and find ways to win, but that effort tired him out quite a bit in the eighth or ninth, and when he got knocked down again in the tenth round, he just couldn’t do it. Don’t stand up again.
But you have to give Tapales credit for being as effective as anyone against Inoue over the years. He deserves respect for what was actually a pretty good fight to watch, although in the end, the “Monster” feasted once again.
Billboard Results
Seiya Tsutsumi UD-10 Kazuki Anaguchi: An excellent fight. Tsutsumi (10-0-2, 7 KO) pulled this out of the fire, scoring enough takedowns to take the fight with scores of 94-92, 94-92 and 95-91. For much of it, Anaguchi (6-1, 2 KO) was clearly the better fighter, but Tsutsumi’s power was the ultimate difference in a fair result. It must be said that Anaguchi did not look good after the fight, staggering to his corner and having to be helped out, although he was upright. Let’s hope the young man recovers and our best wishes to both combatants after this war. Andy Hiraoka TKO-5 Sebastian Diaz (1:52): Hiraoka’s usual mismatch, once again leaving everyone wondering when he’s actually going to face a halfway decent opponent, given that he’s now 27 years old and has been a pro. for a decade. Hiraoka is now 23-0 (18 KOs), while the closely matched Diaz drops to 18-7-1 (13 KOs). Hiraoka says “any champion at 140, I’m coming for you, man,” so he apparently plans to go from fighting guys ranked 574th in the world on BoxRec to Haney, Teofimo, Matías or even Rolly Rollie. Yoshiki Takei KO-2 Mario Diaz: Takei is now 8-0 (8 KOs) to begin his boxing career. The 27-year-old southpaw appears to be gradually moving up to the 122-pound division, a former legitimate K-1 kickboxing champion who was ranked the top fighter in his division and No. 8 pound-for-pound when he retired in 2020. You can see very clearly in his approach that he’s a former kickboxer, but he likes body shots (that’s what got him the KO here) and he’s got some power, at least at this level so far. Diaz is now 21-7 (9 KO) and took the full 10 count on the fall.
