By Jason Kim:Toshiaki Nishioka (33-4-3, 20 KOs) stopped Genaro Garcia (36-7, 20 KOs) in the 12th round on Saturday night to defend his WBC super bantamweight title at the Pacifico, in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. Using a lot of measuring with his right hand, Nishioka teed off with three big left uppercuts in the 12th round, stunning Garcia badly and causing referee Bruce McTavish to step in and halt the bout at 0:57 of the 12th. Garcia, ranked #7 in the WBC, was knocked down twice in the fight – once in the 4th and another time in the 9th, both by big uppercuts from Nishioka.
Nishioka, 32, dominated most of the fight, using his reach and an outstretched right hand to keep the shorter Garcia at a distance. Often times, Nishioka would place his right hand on the head of Garcia and steer and push him around the ring and keep him from getting inside.
Normally, a referee gives warnings for these kinds of tactics, yet it appeared that Nishioka got away with it all night long. As it turns out, this gave Nishioka a huge advantage because Garcia, a good inside fighter, wasn’t able to work his way in close enough to get in his big shots.
In the last four rounds of the fight, Garcia fought hard, pressuring Nishioka hard and landing a lot of good shots during this point in the fight. It’s unfortunate that Garcia wasn’t able to get beyond Nishioka measuring right hand in the earlier part of the fight, because I think the outcome might have been a lot different.
Nishioka, a southpaw, used his outstretched right hand to keep Garcia from getting in punching range in the 1st round. Without Garcia able to land his own shots, Nishioka pegged away at him with jabs and straight left hands. Garcia, unable to get close, missed over and over again and didn’t seem to know what to do to get Nishioka’s right hand off of his head.
Instead of knocking Nishioka’s hand down and going underneath it to land shots, Garcia seemed confused as what to do. Instead, he was held at a distance like a small child fighting a bigger one, flailing and missing over and over again because of his lack of reach. The referee really needed to penalize Nishioka for this tactic, because it seemed to have a big effect on Garcia in the round.
In rounds two through three, Nishioka continued to have success in landing left hands and jabs. It was made easier because he wasn’t facing any incoming fire from Garcia, who as in the first round, was rarely able to get beyond Nishioka’s outstretched right hand which either rested on his head or gave slight pushes to keep Garcia from getting in close.
Before this fight, I had never seen a fighter use their lead arm to hold their opponent back by resting it on their head like that. I had seen it done at times, but never to the extent that Nishioka used it in this fight. Garcia tried knocking Nishioka’s right hand down in the 2nd, but wasn’t able to do it nearly enough to get in range. In the meantime, Nishioka was easily winning the fight, landing lefts and jabs and staying on the move.
At the start of the 4th, Nishioka landed a big left uppercut that dropped a rushing Garcia to the canvas. By this time, Garcia was now rushing forward in making his attacks, a move, it seemed, made in part to try and defeat Nishioka’s outstretched right hand. It worked to a point, because when Garcia would charge forward, he often was able to knock Nishioka off balance when he tried to stop Garcia’s rushes with his right hand push.
But more often than not, Nishioka was able to steer Garcia around with his right hand, guiding him away with a nudge. Again, it was a move that should have been penalized by the referee as far as I see it. After the knockdown, Garcia was the one that attacked hard, coming after Nishioka and trying to make up for the knockdown.
In rounds five through seven, the fight stayed essentially the same, with Nishioka continuing to win the fight with left hands and jabs, and easily fending off Garcia’s attacks with his right arm outstretched to maintain the distance. At the end of the 7th, Garcia landed two good lefts to the head of Nishioka, but that was about all he could do in the entire round.
In rounds eight and nine, Nishioka stayed on the move, jabbing and foiling Garcia’s attacks. By this time, Garcia was now looking desperate, charging forward constantly and throwing wild shots and mostly missing. However, he seemed much more effective than he had been earlier in the fight and was doing a reasonable job of defeating Nishioka’s right hand that he had been using to steer Garcia away.
In the 9th round, Nishioka dropped Garcia with a big left hand early in the round. Nishioka then attacked hard for the next minute of the round, loading up with shots and trying to score a knockout. Garcia took the shots, and responded with some of his own as Nishioka left himself open.
By the end of the round, Nishioka’s left eye, which had a lot of scar tissue around it going into the bout, was bleeding. In rounds ten though twelve, Garcia fought well, attacking Nishioka constantly and landing to the body and head.
Nishioka was still able to hold him back at times with his right hand, but more and more, Garcia was getting past the right to land big shots. It seemed to show how the fight might have taken place had Nishioka not been able to use his right hand to keep Garcia at a distance.
In the 11th, Garcia took a lot of big shots from Nishioka, causing his nose to bleed and swelling to develop around his right eye. In Garcia’s desperation to try and make up for all the rounds he had lost, he was leaving himself wide open for many of Nishioka’s punches.
In the 12th, after a somewhat slow point in the round, Nishioka suddenly went left hand crazy, landing six consecutive left hands , ending with three uppercuts that snapped Garcia’s head back and hurt him badly. Referee Bruce McTavish then stepped in and halted the fight at 0:57 of the 12th.