Gonzalez Decisions Takayama, Tunacao Defeats Nanba

Nicaragua’s Roman ”El Chocolatito” Gonzalez has made the second successful defense of his WBA minimum weight title with a unanimous twelve round decision over Japan’s Katsunari Takayama in Kobe.

The 22 year old Gonzalez who won the title from another Japanese, Yutaka Niida last September 15, won comfortably on the scorecards of all three judges who turned in identical 118-110 scorecards.

The judges were Levi Martinez, Sergio Caiz and Pinit Prayadsab while the referee was the Philippines’ Ver Abainza. 

In his first defense on February 28 this year, Gonzalez scored a hard-fought, twelve round majority decision over Francisco Rosas while the 26 year old  Takayama won an eight round decision in a tune-up fight against Filipino Romart Santillas.

With the win Gonzalez improved his record to 24-0, 20 knockouts while Takayama fell to 23-4 with 9 knockouts.

On the undercard former WBC flyweight champion and Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation bantamweight champion Malcolm “Eagle Eye” Tunacao won a comfortable eight round decision over Japan’s Takuto Nanba with the three judges turning in scorecards of 80-72, 79-74 and 79-75 all for Tunacao.

The southpaw Tunacao who is 30 years of age improved to 24-2-3  with 15 knockouts while Nanba dropped to 7-7-2 with 2 knockouts.

Tunacao was coming off a twelve round split decision win over Monico Laurente to grab the vacant Philippine bantamweight title last September 20.