Boxing News
Title Fights From Around the World: Ryosuke Nishida Becomes Champ, Evelin Bermúdez Retains
Title Fights From Around the World: Ryosuke Nishida Becomes Champ, Evelin Bermúdez Retains
Today, boxing world title fights take place around the globe and are more accessible to watch than ever before. Sometimes, championship bouts do not receive as much attention and go underreported. Big Fight Weekend commits to writing about boxing news, previews, and recaps. As such, the site now has a recurring segment on championship bouts – from around the world from the past week.
The focus of these pieces will be on clashes ranging from atomweight to heavyweight that had the WBA, WBC, IBF, and/or WBO titles on the line. Today’s edition of “Title Fights From Around the World” consists of two recaps. In Japan, the IBF bantamweight title changed hands. Over in Argentina, a reigning champion defended her titles via technical knockout.
Title Fights From Around the World
Ryosuke Nishida Latest to Become Bantamweight Champion
Ryosuke Nishida (9-0, 1 KO) won a unanimous decision against Emmanuel Rodríguez (22-3, 13 KOs, 1 NC) to become the IBF bantamweight champion.
Scores for the fight were 117-110 and 115-112 (x2). The bout took place at the EDION Arena Osaka in Japan on May 4. Fight fans were able to catch the action live on ABEMA TV. This result, in addition to Takuma Inoue and Yoshiki Takei’s triumphs two days later, meant that all four major men’s bantamweight world titles are held by Japanese fighters. At present, Junto Nakatani is the WBC titleholder. On the women’s end, Miyo Yoshida also holds the IBF title.
Nishida dominated the early rounds of the fight, regularly going to the body. A left hook downstairs sent Rodríguez to the canvas in round four. The Puerto Rican did rally, however, and was able to keep the remaining rounds close. Though the challenger won the decision, the bout was incredibly brutal, as evidenced by the face of Nishida post-fight.
Evelin Bermúdez Retains Her Titles
Evelin Bermúdez (20-1-1, 7 KOs) kept her light flyweight titles with a technical knockout win over Jessica Salazar (12-2, 3 KOs).
The time of stoppage was 1:40 of round eight. With the victory, Bermudez retains her WBO and IBF belts. The bout took place at the Estadio Luna Park in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Fight fans could catch the action live on TyC Sports.
In the opening round itself, Bermúdez scored a flash knockdown against her opponent. Though Salazar got up, it was soon evident that she was no match for the reigning champion. Bermúdez kept the challenger at bay with accurate power shots throughout the fight. She turned up the pressure in the sixth. With Bermúdez clearly ahead and having no answer to her style, the corner of Salazar threw in the towel and referee Alejandro Grispo put an end to proceedings.
Currently writing out of Toronto, Canada, Saadeq first became a boxing fan while living in Doha, Qatar. Looking to become more involved in the sport, he began writing about boxing and has had work published in outlets such as Seconds Out and Boxing Social. He looks forward to continue covering boxing on Big Fight Weekend.
