By Dallan o’Donnell: The boxing bin man Rendall Munroe’s quest for the WBC super bantamweight championship was undone in Tokyo earlier today. Munroe, from Leicester showed signs in the opening two rounds that he would be capable of mounting a real challenge for Nishioka’s title but these were the only two rounds that Munroe showed champion qualities. Nishioka had an obvious speed advantage over Munroe and was never really troubled by Munroe’s lacklustre attack. The fight almost ended in the fifth when Nishioka had Munroe rocking and about to go but in a display of resilience Munroe continued on.

Munroe who had a size and power advantage over the champion never exerted his strength and this ultimately led to Nishioka drawing Munroe in hitting fast and with excellent footwork and head movement getting himself out of any danger. Nishioka did look as though he was tiring in the middle and late rounds but Munroe never capitalized. Munroe showed tremendous character again in the 10th absorbing a relentless attack on the body and fighting his way out of a bad situation to make it back to his corner.

Rendall never seemed as though he was in range to plant his feet and hurt Nishioka and often swung and missed wildly. In the end Nishioka scored a unanimous points victory to retain his title and send the Leicester man home disappointed and empty handed.

In other action on the card:

Roman Gonzalez KO 2 Francisco Rosas
interim WBA World light flyweight title
Jorge Linares RTD 4 Jesus Chavez
Yoshihiro Kamegai KO 6 Jose Alfaro
Shinsuke Yamanaka RTD 9 Jose Silveira