By Alexey Sukachev
In an easy outing Saturday night, two-time Japanese Olympian Satoshi Shimizu continued his fast track to a world title shot in the featherweight division by dispatching badly overmatched Filipino Eduardo Mancito in Yokohama, Japan.
Shimizu (5-0, 5 KOs) made the first defense of the OPBF belt, respected in the lower weight classes. Shimizu stopped Mancito with 52 seconds left in round seven. Mancito (15-8-2, 9 KOs) had hardly any chance against a much more skilled and trained opponent and lost a third straight fight.
Shimizu’s win took place on the Naoya Inoue-Yoann Boyeaux undercard at Bunka Gym.
Also Saturday night, Takuma Inoue (10-0, 2 KOs), a younger but less explosive brother of the WBO super flyweight titleholder, scored another workmanlike unanimous decision over a formidable foe.
This time, he beat 34-year old former two-time Japanese bantamweight champion Kentaro Masuda (27-9, 15 KOs) over 10 rounds in a non-title bantamweight contest. Scores were 98-92, 97-93 and 96-94 for the 22-year old Inoue, who is rated No. 9 by the WBC and No. 14 by the WBO as a bantamweight, and No. 10 by the WBA and No. 13 by the IBF as a super flyweight.
