Sunday’s tripleheader in Japan featured two world title fights and an important rematch for a secondary belt. In the main event, Olympic gold medalist Ryota Murata avenged his Spring robbery loss to Hassan N’Dam via corner stoppage to pick up a secondary version of Gennady Golovkin’s WBA belt. Ken Shiro and Daigo Higa successfully defended their titles on the undercard.
Ryota Murata (13-1, 10 KOs) is as steady of a fighter as they come. His offense is actually pretty basic. Yet, despite the predictable continuing volley of overhand rights, he succeeds in wearing his foes down through physical strength and pressure. His jab was much more present this time too which made a big difference in setting up that overhand right. Otherwise Murata doesn’t use his left much outside of a few courtesy hooks to the body, but so far he hasn’t needed it.
Hassan N’Dam (36-3, 21 KOs) showed every bit of wear and tear from his career in this fight. He just never looked good from the start. The Cameroonian was clinching before the action had even started and his legs looked gone from the fourth round on. In their first fight, despite the reaction to the decision in his favor, N’Dam did have stretches of real success using his footwork to outbox his slower footed challenger. Here he looked no longer capable of this from the opening bell.
The secondary titlist fought valiantly through three rounds, maybe picking up the third, but in the fourth his legs were already shot. He went to the canvas a few times from weakness more than anything else. N’Dam stopped being able to avoid the right hand, maybe thanks to solid body work that Murata invested in early this time around. From there it was academic. After being battered and staggered in the sixth and seventh rounds, N’Dam’s corner pulled the plug on the fight before the eighth round could begin.
If the WBA holds to their promise of continuing to unify their messes in each division, Ryota Murata should be ordered to fight the WBA “super” belt holder. For now that is Gennady Golovkin, but it looks like GGG will be rematching Canelo Alvarez in May. Murata will probably get an optional defense first.
In the co-main event, 22 year old flyweight sensation Daigo Higa (14-0, 14 KOs) kept both his perfect knockout percentage and his WBC flyweight title in tact by stopping European titleholder Thomas Masson in the seventh round following the Frenchman’s complaints of eye trouble. Higa was his normal aggressive self here, ripping downstairs and then upstairs in constant succession.
Masson fought valiantly, but the punishment was too much. By the fourth round I thought the body work was really getting to him. In the fifth, Masson was visibly bothered from body shots. One round later he nearly went down from them a few times, but his massive heart kept him upright. It then followed that a body shot finish was coming, but it was actually a shot upstairs to the eye that caused Masson to drop to a knee. He wasn’t hurt in the concussive sense, but he was clearly bothered by the eye. After a conversation with the doctor, the fight was stopped without protest.
Higa is a fairly reckless fighter. He also doesn’t have the one shot power that you might expect from his record and reputation. What the young Japanese star is is relentless. He fights in a straight line without head movement and will throw wild shots that put himself out of position, but just the constant ferocity with speed and power eventually has cracked everyone he has met. Daigo Higa does seem like he could be outboxed, but I don’t envy anyone trying to accomplish that.
Ken Shrio (11-0, 5 KOs) also successfully defended his WBC title, the light flyweight edition over long time contender and former titlist Pedro Guevara (30-3-1, 17 KOs). I didn’t end up finding the time to write a preview for this card, but had I done so I would have been right about the previous two fights and wrong about this one. I haven’t been that impressed by Shiro and Pedro Guevara is a really good fighter.
Unfortunately, I still cannot find watchable video of this contest. Both the biggest mainstream American boxing writer in Dan Rafael and my go to source for knowledge on the larger Asian scene, asianboxing.info, seem to agree that the decision was fair at least. Both acknowledge that Shiro needed to rally late to find it, but neither had any complaints. Asianboxing.info even mentions that this fight wasn’t televised in their write up. That would be a confusing development, but it would also explain my inability to find decent video of it.
