By Jim Dower: Making his second defense of his World Boxing Association flyweight title, champion Denkaosan Kaovichit (48-1-1, 20 KO’s) defeated number #11 ranked contender Daiki Kameda (15-2, 11 KO’s) by a 12 round majority decision on Tuesday night at the Central Gym, Osaka, in Osaka, Japan.
The final judges’ scores were 115-113, 115-113 and 114-114. The scores seemed way out of sorts from the fight that actually took place, because I had Kaovichit, 33, winning the bout 11 rounds to 1. Kameda pressured continuously in the fight, especially in the later rounds, but he was ineffective at landing his shots. The bout was filled with a lot of clinching by both fighters and a great deal of body punching by Kaovichit, who looked superb until the last three rounds when he started initiating a lot of the clinching.
Kaovichit fought on the inside in rounds one through three, landing to the body with hard shots. His punches were much harder than Kameda’s and he was able to get the better of Kameda during most of the exchanges. Kameda threw few punches during this round and essentially gave the rounds away by not throwing all that often. In the 3rd round, Kameda threw a big left hook that landed to the head of Kaovichit.
But other than that one big shot, Kameda was once again outworked. The judges, perhaps, scored this round for Kameda but I couldn’t give him the round off of just one good punch. He was unable to land with anywhere close to the amount of punches that Kaovichit was landing in the round.
Rounds four and five were totally one-sided, as Kameda was throwing absolutely nothing and doing a lot of gesturing with his hands, as if to tell Kaovichit to throw more shots. And that he did, landing a high number of shots to the midsection of Kameda and totally dominating the round. The 6th round was slightly close as Kameda pressured Kaovichit throughout the round but he was unable to throw enough punches, once again, to win the round on my card. The judges, however, likely gave the round to Kameda, even though he was out-landed by an astronomical number during the round.
In rounds seven through ten, Kaovichit had his way with Kameda, landing constantly to the midsection and staying away from his single return shots. Kaovichit began to hit and move in the 8th round, tagging Kameda and then immediately moving away. It worked perfectly, because the 29-year-old Kameda was unable to land his shots with any regularity.
In the 11th round, Kameda finally appeared to win his first round as Kaovichit did next to nothing in the round and just gave it away to Kameda. By then, I had Kaovichit comfortably in control of the fight by a huge 10-1 margin. Kameda’s left cheek was swollen up. In the 12th, Kaovichit showed that he wanted it more and badly outworked Kameda throughout the final round.