The second season of the World Boxing Super Series is off to a rousing start thanks to Naoya Inoue’s quick win.
I didn’t see that coming. Juan Carlos Payano (20-2, 9 KOs) certainly didn’t either. While the general result of a knockout win for Naoya “Monster” Inoue (17-0, 15 KOs) was not surprising given the Japanese fighter’s elite pound for pound status, it was certainly supposed to take longer than a minute to happen. Payano had fought on better or even terms with top divisional contenders Rau’shee Warren and Anselmo Moreno, but not here. A lightning fast and absolutely devastating right hand behind a deceptive jab separate the Dominican from his senses and that was that. This was an absolutely sensational performance from Inoue. He now moves on to face the winner of the IBF title fight between Manny Rodriguez and Andrew Moloney in the second round. I bet neither of those men is particularly excited about the idea today.
WBA junior welterweight titleholder Kyril Relikh (23-2, 19 KOs) also advanced in his tournament with a close points win over former holder of the same title Eduard Troyanovsky (27-2, 24 KOs). There has been some thought that the aging Russian has a real fragile chin ever since his quick destruction at the hands of Julius Indongo and it seemed Relikh was looking to exploit that idea from the first to the final bell of the fight. The Belorussian titleholder put on an enormous amount of pressure in the fight while the traditionally more powerful Russian challenger ended up being forced to box off the back foot. Troyanovsky did surprisingly well with this tactic. His jab was effective and he got big single shots in throughout the fight. Relikh often looked pretty sloppy in attacking him too. At the same time, Kyril brought the majority of the volume and landed more shots over the twelve rounds because of it. All in all this was a bit of a toss up decision in which Relikh was awarded the judgment on three identical 115-113 cards. His intensity and effort carried the day in the end even if it was sloppy at times. He’ll get the winner between Regis Prograis and Terry Flanagan in the semifinals.
Opening the show and separate from the WBSS tournaments was Ken Shiro’s (14-0, 8 KOs) WBC light flyweight defense against Milan Melindo (37-4, 13 KOs). The 26 year old Japanese rising star may have put on a career best performance on the big stage too. Milan Melindo is a former titleholder and a true top contender, but you wouldn’t know it by watching him in with the craft of Ken Shiro. After two slow rounds, Shiro’s jab began working in the third. He took control from there with that simple but precise shot. The titleholder systematically worked his right hand in more round by round, sitting down on it more and more over time too. In the sixth round he opened up a bad cut on Melindo and the fight was stopped on that cut in the seventh. While cuts stoppages are never completely satisfactory, this one felt like it was heading in that direction anyway. Each round was more of a beating than the one before it and the Filipino challenger was beginning to be staggered by the right hands. The end was near anyway.
