By Scott Gilfoid: British super bantamweight challenger Rendall Munroe (21-2, 9 KO’s) was totally dominated by World Boxing Council (WBC) super bantamweight champion Toshiaki Nishioka (37-4-3, 23 KO’s), losing a by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision on Sunday night at the Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan. Nishioka, 34, using movement, straight left hands and vicious body shots, won by the scores of 119-109, 119-109 and 119-109. Munroe just couldn’t handle the movement and ended up taking big time punishment from Nishioka.

Munroe, the EBU super bantamweight champion, does well against fighters that just stand there in one place and let him rake them with shots, but against a fighter like Nishioka, who used movement to confound him, Munroe was like a little child. He had no clue what to do. The fight was one-sided from the start, but could even worse as the rounds progressed into the 10th, 11th and 12th. During those rounds, Nishioka opened up with blistering combinations, landing scores of shots in sustained flurries.

Munroe was unable to do much during those flurries other than cover up and try to block as many shots as he could. Judging from the cut under his right eye and his badly swelled up face, Munroe didn’t do a very good job blocking Nishioka’s shots. Munroe was able to pressure and land some nice shots of his own in each round, but Nishioka was always able to shut him down by moving around the ring and then suddenly stopping to tag Munroe with straight left hands.

Munroe was just helpless to block the shots from the southpaw Nishioka and would end up getting tagged hard. It was almost embarrassingly easy for Nishioka, because Munroe just had no defense for Nishioka’s left hands and he kept getting hit with them one after another. Things got steadily worse in the later rounds, as Munroe tired and he began to get pounded with flurries. Nishioka had the Japanese crowd screaming loudly in the last three rounds when he began to flurry on the hapless Munroe. Now that he’s failed, Munroe will have to go back to the European or perhaps the local scene to ply his trade down there. He should do well because there’s not much competition, but at least now he knows how good he is.