Takuma Inoue (19-1, 5 KOs), not known for his power, retained his WBA bantamweight belt with a 9th-round body shot knockout of former super flyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas (34-4-2, 23 KOs) in Tokyo, Japan.
Inoue, the brother of superstar Naoya Inoue, connected with a combo to the body in the ninth that put the 32-year-old Ancajas down on the canvas. When Ancajs failed to get up, referee Mark Nelson waved it off at 0:44 of the ninth.
What was surprising is Takuma scoring a stoppage because he’s not been blessed with the huge punching power of his brother, and normally is forced to win fights by outworking and outboxing his opponents.
Inoue obviously tries to sit down on his shots the way his brother does, and he doesn’t possess the pop in his shots. But against Ancajas, Takuma got enough on his body shots to score a rare knockout.
The Tide Turns
Ancajas started to look tired and worn by the seventh round and looked like he was having trouble taking the punches to the midsection that Inoue was focusing on. The Japanese fighter had done his homework and knew how to get the better of him.
In the eighth, Ancajas was getting hit a lot to the body by Inoue, which set up the stoppage in the ninth. Inoue ended matters in the ninth with a perfectly placed combination to the body that dropped the former 115-lb champion Ancajas. The fight was then halted at the 0:44 mark by referee Mark Nelson.
It helps that Ancajas had come into the fight with two defeats to the talented super flyweight Fernando Daniel Martinez in his last three fights. If Takuma Inoue had been facing Martinez tonight instead of Ancajas, the chances are that he would have suffered his second career loss and would have been dethroned.
Takuma’s victory over Ancajas was more a product of fighting a worn-out fighter rather than a statement about his talent as the WBA 118-lb champion. This could be the end of the road for Ancajas, with him losing his third fight in his last four outings.
As for Takuma. It would be interesting to see him face new WBC 118-lb champion Junto Nakatani or Reymart Gaballo. Those would be fun fights to see if Takuma can hold up under the fire power from those two.