Boxing In Japan: Hasegawa, Larios Win World Title Fights In Tokyo

Two world champions saw action at Tokyo’s Yoyogi First Gym on Thursday night and when the dust finally settled both WBC Bantamweight titlist Hozumi Hasegawa and WBC Featherweight ruler Oscar Larios each kept their belts in two very different fights.

Mexico’s Alejandro Valdez came into his challenge of Hasegawa not having lost a bout over the course of 17 contests dating back four years but the Ciudad Obregon man had trouble with the power of the champion in this battle of southpaws.

From the start, it was a close contest and the first round saw Valdez taking the action behind the jab to a patient Hasegawa. In the second, Valdez continued to laser in the jab to both head and body, catching Hasegawa and disrupting the champion’s offense.

The first few times that Valdez came in, he caught Hasegawa with either a decent right or left hook but about midway through the second frame, the champion began to time those incursions and first caught the challenger with a nice left hook.

Valdez became more aggressive but that opened him up to Hasegawa’s right hands and after taking two hard chopping rights, the Mexican was down with a minute left in the frame. Valdez beat the count and came forward toward the champion but Hasegawa’s follow-up assault was catching the challenger with big shots from both hands.

A big left hook then propelled Valdez towards the corner and Hasegawa unleashed a ten punch torrent, of which one right hand landed well on the jaw, and the reeling challenger was stopped by the referee at 2:41 of the second, despite the vigorous protestations of Valdez and his team.

Hasegawa won the WBC Crown with a twelve round unanimous decision against Thailand’s Veeraphol Sahaprom in April, 2005 and has now made seven successful defenses and won 22 consecutive bouts. The 27 year old improves to 25-2 (9) while Valdez is stopped for only the second time in his career, falling to 21-3-1 (15).

WBC Featherweight Champ Larios competed in his 70th pro contest and it was one of his most difficult since joining the pair ranks in 1994 as youthful Tokyo man Takahiro Aol came to fight and nearly pulled the cat out of the bag.

Aol came into the bout as the 24 year old undefeated Japanese Featherweight titlist and the iron chinned southpaw was stepping up significantly for this challenge of Larios but good punch selection coupled with superb stamina put the champion on the defensive and at times into deep water.

At 31, Larios could be approaching the end of his career and the Guadalajara native certainly looked vulnerable as he was floored in the fourth and shaken numerous times afterward, but the wily old Mexican was not without skill and used his experience to stay close before the fight ended after the twelfth round.

When the scorecards were read, a disappointed Aol dropped a narrow and largely controversial split decision, losing 115-111, 114-112 and 112-114. Aol drops to 16-1-1 (8), while Larios wins his fourth straight and defends his WBC Featherweight belt, improving to 63-6-1 (39).