by Ronnie Nathanielsz
Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation flyweight champion Rocky Fuentes makes the second defense of his title against No. 1 contender Yasuto Aritomi of Japan at the International Conference Hall in Nagoya on September 5.
The 24 year old Fuentes who has a record of 36-6-2 with 16 knockouts won the title won the title with a twelve round split decision over Masafumi Okubo in which Australian judge Brad Vocale somehow saw the fight a 114-114 draw while the two other judges, Japanese judge Kazunobu Asao 116-114 and Filipino judge Ben Necessario 115-113 both had Fuentes the winner.
In an absolute war in his first defense of the crown, the hard-hitting Fuentes scored an 11th round TKO over Shigetaka Ikehara in what Japanese boxing writers said could well be the “Fight of the Year” in Japan.
The 30 year old Aritomi has an impressive record of 17-1-2 with 8 knockouts but significantly failed to win the OPBF title in a clash with Okubo which ended in a 3rd round technical draw on August 16, 2008.
Aritomi is coming off a 1st round TKO of Thailand’s Chaiyan Sithsaithong on March 28 this year following back-to-back TKO wins stopping Yasuaki Sato in the 5th round on March 29, 2009 and Eiji Nimura in the 4th round on November 22, 2009.
