By Jim Dower: WBC super bantamweight champion Toshiaki Nishioka (39-4-3, 24 KO’s) overcame a slow start in the first five rounds to completely dominate 36-year-old former two division world champion Rafael Marquez (40-7, 36 KO’s) in a 12 round unanimous decision victory at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113. I saw Nishioka winning the fight by a narrow margin based on his superior work from rounds six through twelve.

Marquez had no answer to Nishioka’s speed and straight left hands once he started throwing them from the 6th round on. Nishioka did next to nothing in the first five rounds, allowing Marquez to control the action with little more than his powerful jab. However, even then, Marquez was unable to land hardly any of his power shots because of his diminished hand speed.

At one time, Marquez was a fairly fast fighter but age has slowed his hands to the point where he had problems landing any power shots during the fight. Again and again, Marquez missed and looked like a shot fighter. Although only a year older than the 35-year-old Nishioka, Marquez appeared a lot older in his deteriorated physical skills.

The southpaw Nishioka began to heat up the action in the 6th, landing straight left hand leads from time to time to win the round. Nishioka’s speed began to really show itself in the 7th, as he hit Marquez over and over again with blinding fast shots before Marquez could even react. When Marquez would try to land his own shots, he would fall short because of the time it would take for his slow punches to travel to where the target. It was pretty sad to watch.

In the 8th round, Nishioka was cut from a headbutt on the hairline. Marquez immediately attempted to take advantage of the cut by rushing Nishioka and trying to take him out. However, Marquez only landed a small handful of shots for all of his activity and ended up eating a lot of left hands from Nishioka.

In the 9th round, Marquez came running out of his corner looking to initiate the action. However, after landing a left to midsection, Marquez began to get tagged with repeated lefts from Nishioka. The round, like the other recent ones, saw Nishioka spearing Marquez with left hand after left hand. Marquez looked shot.

Nishioka landed virtually at will in the 10th round with left hands. He appeared to hurt Marquez with a left uppercut that caused Marquez to back up towards the ropes. Nishioka then flurried on him with punches, but a lot of them were picked off on the gloves of Marquez. it was a good round for Nishioka never the less, as he was teeing off on Marquez without even worrying about Marquez’s slow punches. The 11th and 12th was more of the same with Nishioka blasting away at Marquez with left hands. Marquez continued to try and land his power shots until the final bell, but missed more often than not and looked painfully slow.

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In the undercard, unbeaten WBA World light flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (30-0, 25 KO’s) destroyed a badly over-matched Omar Soto (22-8-2, 15 KO’s) in the 2nd round. Gonzalez, 24, landed a right cross to the head followed by a left uppercut that sent the 31-year-old Soto down on the canvas where he was counted out by referee Robert Byrd at 0:36 of the 2nd. Soto was badly hurt and stayed down for a long time. The first round saw very little action, as Gonzalez just pawed with his jab and studied Soto for the entire round without attempting to land anything significant.

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Unbeaten featherweight prospect Jesse Magdaleno (6-0, 4 KO’s) halted Isaac Hidalgo (8-8-2, 1 KO’s) with a 1st retirement. The southpaw Magdaleno, 19, really pounded Hidalgo with power shots to the head and body during the round, reddening Hidalgo’s face. In between rounds, Hidalgo opted not to continue. It was a wise choice because he would have taken out in a round or too had he continued. Magdaleno throws a lot of power and has excellent hand speed. This guy is likely a future world champion in the making.

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Other results on the card:

Yoshihiro Kamegai TKO 6 Hector Munoz
Jose Angel Beranza SD 10 Christopher Martin
Hiromitsu Miura UD 6 Hector Hernandez
Carlos Linares TKO 1 Kevin Riding-In