Boxing In Japan: WBA Champ Jorge Linares Crushed In Tokyo!

In one of the most shocking upsets of the year thus far, WBA super feather champ Jorge Linares was stopped in the first round by challenger Juan Carlos Salgado today at Yoyogi Gymnasium in Tokyo.

Both men came into the contest undefeated but Tokyo based Venezuelan Linares was a former WBC feather and current WBA super feather kingpin who had stopped his last six adversaries early and was expected to win big.

Mexico City based Salgado had turned away respectable competition such as Ivan Valle and Marcos Licona during his career but had not come close to facing a world class operator before this opportunity.

During the first round, Salgado caught Linares unaware with a full-blooded right hand that decked the champion. Linares was soon on his pants again after the next assault and while he beat the count, the Tokyo resident was declared to be in no shape to continue and the contest stopped at 1:13 of the frame.

Salgado becomes the new WBA super feather boss and improves to 21-0-1 (15), while Linares drops to 27-1 (18).

There were more title contests on the bill with Japanese southpaw Toshiaki Nishioka, 35-4-3 (22), making the second defense of his WBC super bantam belt a happy one with a third round TD over Mexican challenger Ivan Hernandez, 25-4-1 (15).

Featherweight Satoshi Honsho, 16-0 (12), stayed undefeated by outpointing Hiroyuki Enoki, 28-3-2 (20), over twelve for the OPBF title.

A Japanese super feather title bout was won by Takashi Miura, 17-1-2 (14), on points after ten against Masayuki Koguchi, 19-6-2 (7).