By Jim Dower: Undefeated WBA super featherweight champion Takashi Uchiyama (24-0-1, 20 KOs) made easy work of the hard hitting #6 WBA Oliver Flores (27-2-2, 17 KOs) in stopping him in the 3rd round of a scheduled 12 round fight on Thursday night at the Ota-City General Gymnasium, in Tokyo, Japan.

Uchiyama, 36, knocked Flores down with a left to the body in the 3rd round. Flores was too badly hurt to get back to his feet to resume fighting. He was stretched out face down on the canvas with a look of pain on his face on the knockdown. The fight was halted at 1:47 of the round.

In the 1st round, Uchiyama staggered Flores with a hard right to the head. Uchiyama continued to nail Flores with hard right hands in the 1st and 2nd. Uchiyama didn’t have nearly the same amount of punching power in his left hand shots that he did with his lead rights.
By the 2nd round, Flores had red swelling under his right eye from the right hands that Uchiyama kept hitting him with.

Flores land several really big shots in the 1st and 2nd rounds. Uchiyama took them well and kept firing back hard right hands to the head. The sound of the impact of Uchiyama’s shots was loud with a banging thud. There was definitely a lot of power behind his punches.

The victory for Uchiyama was his 11th straight successful title defense since winning the WBA 130lb belt in 2010 with a win over Juan Carlos Salgado.

It’s probably going to take someone like Nicholas Walters to give Uchiyama problems in the division, as most of the other top fighters aren’t in the same league with him due to his huge punching power. Walters has good power in either hand, and he could be the guy to beat Uchiyama if he can handle his right hand punching power.

For Walters to beat Uchiyama, he’s going to need to avoid getting hit by him. Walters was hit a lot in his recent 10 round draw against Jason Sosa earlier this month on December 19th. Sosa had no problems landing his best power shots on the chin of Walters.

The only problem was Sosa didn’t have the punching power to hurt him. Uchiyama does have the punching power. Walters would not be able to take getting hit by Uchiyama for 12 rounds without getting knocked out or badly busted up unless he gets to him early.