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Click the above Image for more Photos of Rendall Munroe
Rendall Munroe and his team arrived back in U.K. last week after two weeks in Tokyo and are clearly happy to be home.
World Title Challenger – Munroe took WBC Super-Bantamweight Champion Toshiaki Nishioka the distance but despite a brave and gutsy performance – could not defeat him. Nishioka gave a classy performance to keep the Title for a fourth consecutive time.
Catching up with Team Munroe on Friday, trainer Jason Shinfield and his father – Manager Mike, were respectful of Nishioka and obviously immensely proud of Munroe.
They both reiterated the fact that training had gone well before the fight, they had been well accommodated for in Tokyo and their hosts had been very well organised. “It was straight into media stuff as soon as we got over there”, Jason Shinfield began, “but they are so organised it’s untrue. We were treated well.
“We wanted to get straight in the gym the day we arrived but it was busy, so they said we could have use of it to ourselves every night from 8pm. That suited us fine because Rendall would be training at a time when he needed to be.
“Rendall settled in to doing his runs in the local park alongside Harry (his Nutritionist) and he managed OK with his food, so there was nothing really that would have unsettled him pre-fight.
“In the venue there were some British supporters wearing the hi-vis jackets – even a couple of Japanese were wearing them! (laughing).”
I commented that the atmosphere looked a bit ‘cold’. “It was a quieter atmosphere in there, but we were told to expect that,” Jason replied.
Telling him I was sorry they didn’t get the result, he replied “ Rendall gave 110% – that’s all I could of asked of him. He (Rendall) said he was frustrated later in the fight – he kept throwing everything at him but Nishioka kept coming back.”
I commented that ‘I was so used to Rendall scoring with body-shots, that I was surprised at how many body-shots Nishioka landed.’
“You know yourself that it’s different watching live than it is on TV, Rendall said the body-shots weren’t that bad, there was only one that he really ‘felt’. He (Nishioka) didn’t get any leverage behind the body-shots so they weren’t that hard. In fact, we saw afterward that his hands were broken where he’d been catching Rendall’s arms / elbows.
“We heard after the fight that although Rendall had lost a lot of rounds, they were close rounds – some were difficult to score – he only lost them marginally except for the last two.
“He had a good fourth round and we thought ‘This is it now – he’ll pull away’, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.
“He’s fine though. He just has a nick under his right eye – that’s all. He’s enjoying the attention since he got back! I’ve told him to take four weeks off from training but you know what Rendall’s like! I doubt I’ll be able to keep him away for that long! “ (laughs).
“He’s had a lot of support from fans and is proud of his effort in the ring. He’ll be even more motivated to get back to training.”
Jason finished by giving credit to Nishioka – but said that Rendall gave a good performance and he couldn’t ask for any more.
As for Rendall – he’s back at work today – on the bins!
