Naoya Inoue became a two-division undisputed champion in Tokyo, knocking out a game Marlon Tapales in the 10th round of their 122 lb championship unification.
Inoue (26-0, 23 KO) picked up the WBC and WBO titles from Tapales (37-4, 19 KO), adding to the WBA and IBF belts he claimed earlier this year with a win over Stephen Fulton Jr.
It took Inoue two fights in the 122 lb division to go undisputed, just over a year after fully unifying the 118 lb division.
Inoue, 30, didn’t have his most thrilling performance, and the bulk of that is credit to Tapales, 31, who really fought about as well as anyone could have reasonable expected.
The Filipino southpaw was dropped in the fourth round, but kept trying to make adjustments and find ways to win, but that effort had him pretty tired by the eighth or ninth, and when he got put down again in round 10, he just couldn’t get back to his feet.
But give Tapales credit for being about as effective as anyone has against Inoue over the years. He deserves respect for what really was a pretty good fight to watch, though in the end, the “Monster” feasted once more.
Undercard results
- Seiya Tsutsumi UD-10 Kazuki Anaguchi: An excellent fight. Tsutsumi (10-0-2, 7 KO) pulled this out of the fire, kinda, scoring enough knockdowns to take the fight on scores of 94-92, 94-92, and 95-91. For a lot of it, Anaguchi (6-1, 2 KO) was the clear better fighter, but Tsutsumi’s power made the ultimate difference in a fair result. Should be said that Anaguchi did not look good after the fight, staggering to his corner and having to be helped out, though he was upright. Hopefully the young man will be alright, and our best wishes to both fighters after this war.
- Andy Hiraoka TKO-5 Sebastian Diaz (1:52): The usual Hiraoka mismatch, once again leaving everyone to wonder when he’s really going to take a halfway-decent opponent, given that he’s 27 now and has been a pro for a decade. Hiraoka is now 23-0 (18 KO), while the over-matched Diaz falls to 18-7-1 (13 KO). Hiraoka says “any champion at 140, I’m coming for you, man,” so apparently he plans to hop from fighting guys ranked 574th in the world on BoxRec to Haney, Teofimo, Matias, or even Rolly Rollie.
- Yoshiki Takei KO-2 Mario Diaz: Takei is now 8-0 (8 KO) to start his boxing career. The 27-year-old southpaw looks to be moving gradually to the 122 lb division, a former legit champion kickboxer for K-1 who was ranked as the best 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 the body shots — that’s what got him the KO here — and has some power, at least to this level so far. Diaz is now 21-7 (9 KO), and took the full 10-count upon being dropped.