Takuma Inoue again beats Tenshin Nasukawa, defends bantamweight title

Takuma Inoue again defeated Tenshin Nasukawa to defend his WBC bantamweight title in Tokyo, Japan.

The pair had met in November of last year for the vacant green-and-gold belt with Inoue walking out the winner. The rematch was set after Inoue had impressed with an impressive victory over Kazuto Ioka in May on the undercard of his older brother Naoya Inoue’s super fight with Junto Nakatani, while Nasukawa had also claimed victory over former champion Juan Francisco Estrada a month earlier.

Both fighters had improved from their first battle heading into the rematch and both showed their improvements early into the contest. Inoue, now 23-2 (5 KOs), edged in and landed shots with his quick combination punching, while Nasukawa, 8-3 (3 KOs), demonstrated his powerful southpaw left hand, flooring Inoue in the second, although it was ruled a slip.

It was a tightly knitted contest in the early stages with Nasukawa, 28, edging the early encounters with his powerful left hand. Inoue. 30, upped the tempo in the fifth and sixth sessions, landing a firm left hook and right hand that brought the respect of the former kick-boxing champion.

Early into the seventh, Inoue again started fast and let his hands go on the inside, but was sloppy with his defense. Nasukawa stepped in with a left hand that smashed across the chin of the WBC champion and sent him down to the canvas. This time the knockdown was counted and Inoue looked far from okay when the action was waved on by referee Michael Griffin.

Nasukawa pushed forwards, cracking Inoue again with a left hand and following it up with a shot to the body. Inoue was taking the shots well as he retreated to the ropes and managed the round well to hear the bell. In the eighth, Inoue had recovered well from the heavy knockdown in the round prior and set about his combination punching again.

Following eight completed rounds the WBC open scoring read 77-74 on all three judges cards.

Nasukawa knew he had to win all four of the remaining sessions to claim the victory, but although he was able to make the rounds tighter, he was unable to move out of the way of Inoue’s right hand.

It seemed as though Inoue could not miss at times, cracking the southpaw as he pushed forwards to land a telling blow. In the 12th and  final session, Inoue was confident that he had done enough to secure the victory and boxed accordingly, not allowing Nasukawa a chance to turn the contest around with his left hand that had already proved telling.

Inoue was awarded the win by a unanimous decision after the conclusion of the contest via scores of 114-113 and 116-111 (twice).