It wasn’t supposed to be all that competitive and it wasn’t most of the way. The catch was that it went in the opposite direction as expected. Masayuki Ito controlled Christopher Diaz on ESPN+ on his way to a unanimous decision win.
Christopher Diaz (23-1, 15 KOs) was set up to win his first world title at home in Florida tonight on ESPN+, but it didn’t work out as planned. Masayuki Ito (24-1, 12 KOs) had something to say about that. What was immediately striking at the opening bell was the Japanese contender’s size advantage and he worked it throughout the fight. He dominated the first four rounds with relative ease. Diaz was a sitting duck with no foot or head movement, nor could he find his range. It looked like the upset was going to come early in round four too when a series if Ito right hands put Christopher Diaz down hard.
Diaz rose and survived the fourth. Better than that, he came out inspired and aggressive in round five to take his first three minute win of the contest. The sixth was competitive with Diaz still live early, but by the end of the round Ito had taken back over. Diaz’s left eye was also worrying by this point as it was rapidly swelling closed. From here the fight was more competitive with the Puerto Rican title hopeful attempting to rally, but he couldn’t do much more than steal another two rounds on my card. He was too stationary and never really found the range on his big left hook.
The fight was exciting in its second half and Diaz fought valiantly with his ugly, ugly eye, but Ito was just superior in all ways. He landed beautiful Andre Ward-like uppercuts tight on the inside while his right hands were on point from range. I scored the contest 117-110 in Ito’s favor. One judge agreed with my card while the other two varied by one round in each direction at 116-111 and 118-109. Masayuki Ito is your new WBO junior lightweight titleholder.
In the co-main event, longtime fringe contender Gabriel Bracero (25-3-1, 6 KOs) scored a rare for him knockout via body shot as a late replacement over Artemio Reyes (25-3, 20 KOs). It wasn’t an exciting fight, but the 37 year old did what he needed to do to get the win over a strangely complacent opponent.
