By William MacKay: In his first defense of his WBA lightweight title, newly crowned champion Jose Alfaro (20-4, 18 KOs) was stopped in the 3rd round by challenger Yusuke Kobori (23-2-2, 12 KOs) of a scheduled 12-round title bout at Differ Ariake, in Tokyo, Japan on Monday night. Alfaro, 24, got caught up in a war with Kobori from the opening round, with both fighter trading knockdowns in the fight. In the 3rd round, Kobori, 28, dropped Alfaro with a right-left combination. Badly hurt, Alfaro made it to his fight and the fight was allowed to continue. Shortly thereafter, Kobori landed a flurry of shots against the nearly defenseless Alfaro, driving him across the ring into ropes, where he staggered him and unloaded some tremendous right hands, causing referee Rafael Ramos to move in and halt the fight at 2:08 of the 3rd round.
In the 1st round, instead of choosing to box with the crude-slugging Kobori, Alfaro let himself get trapped into a war, which didn’t favor his style of fighting in the least. Kobori, ranked #7 in the WBA, went right after Alfaro, nailing him with straight right hands and left hooks repeatedly. Kobori’s straight right hand was specially lethal, snapping Alfraro’s head back over again over in the round. Alfaro looked as if he was a deer caught in the head lights of an automobile, not knowing how to deal with Kabori’s aggressive attacks other than trying to fire back equally hard punches.
In that, Alfaro was much less successful, because his punches had none of the power that Kobori’s did, nor did he have the same wild type of attack that he did. As the round progressed, many of Kobori’s shots were missing their mark, but he still continued throwing each punch with everything he had on them rather than letting up on his power. On one occasion near the end of the round, Kobori threw a wild right hand that missed by a mile, causing him to spin almost all the way around and falling down. To say he looked amateurish would be kind, for he looked awful. Yet it didn’t matter, because Alafaro looked little better than him.
Kobori started in where he left off at the start of the 2nd round, hitting Alfaro with repeated right hands to the head, backing him up to the ropes. However, a short time into the round, Alfaro suddenly unloaded with a big left hook to the head of Kobori, followed by a right hand that staggered him. Alfaro then added another perfect right hand that dropped Kobori briefly in the far corner. The referee then gave Kobori a standing eight count. Instead of immediately going after Kobori, Alfaro played it conservatively, allowing Kobori to recover. It didn’t take long for Kobori to not only recover but commence to laying a whopping on Alfaro, hitting him with a series of big right hands for the remaining minute of the round. In the last 30 seconds it was especially brutal, as Kobori unloaded with a big flurry of shots while Alfaro laid back against the ropes.
In the 3rd round, Kobori went right hand crazy, hitting Alfaro with one sledgehammer right after another, and almost none of them blocked. I can’t says I blame Kobori for nailing him with only rights, because he proved that he was defenseless against them, much as he did with his other punches, so why not continue pasting him with them? Finally, after nailing Alfaro with ton of big right hands, Kobori dropped him with a right-left combination. Alfaro got to one knee, stayed there for several seconds before getting to his feet wearily. At that point, Kobori charged after him and preceded to wipe him out with a snowstorm of combinations, prompting referee Rafael Ramos to step in and stop the fight after Alfaro was staggered.
Up until last year, Alfaro’s career had been nothing to shout about, having lost twice against marginal fighters and still having yet to fight a named fighter. That all changed when he took on DeMarcus Corley in May 2007, dropping him twice en route to stopping him in the 8th round. Following that fight, Alfaro squeaked by Prawet Singwancha, beating him by a 12-round split decision for the vacant WBA lightweight title in December 2007.