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Japanese boxing champion Kazuto Ioka won a victory without surprise, giving Japanese fans a New Year's gift and a wrap-up to the whole year of professional boxing in 2023.
On December 31, 2023, Beijing time, in a world boxing title defense match in the "Great Day" series of events held at the Ota Ward General Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan, Kazusho Ioka from Japan knocked out Venezuelan boxer Josber Perez three times, and finally defeated his opponent by knockout in the seventh round of the match to win the match.
Kazusho Ioka, who has already won world titles in four divisions, continues his habit of competing in the annual Chinese New Year's Eve event in Japan. It's just that unlike the opponents in previous years, the level of the opponents in this year's Dahui Day competition is a little out of the table. In fact, Ioka had wanted to face Juan Francisco Estrada, a generational hegemon from Mexico and current WBC Superropeweight World Champion. But after spending a lot of time negotiating, the two sides still did not agree on the distribution of the benefits. As a result, Pérez ended up being a rival for Kazusho Ioka.
In the first round of the bout, the gap between WBO superweight world champion Kazusho Ioka and WBO superweight ranked 10th Josper Pérez quickly became apparent. At the start of the bout, Ioka was aggressive, knocking out his opponent in the first round. Although Josper Pérez also wanted to fight back, he caused his door to open wide and was beaten back by Kazusho Ioka.
In the second round of the bout, Pérez seemed to have resigned himself to his fate, and he began to execute his die-and-die tactics. Only when he was forced to the side of the rope by Ioka would he land a few heavy punches to repel Iaoka's attack, and of course there weren't many "bright" moments for Josper Pérez.
In the third round of the bout, the two fighters began to engage in positional battles, with Kazusho Ioka targeting Pérez's body and Josper Pérez, who still had plenty of energy to spare.
In the fourth round of the match, Kazusho Ioka switched direction and began to focus on Josper Pérez's head, and the effect of this tactical adjustment was very obvious. However, it also caused Josper Pérez to move faster to dodge, preventing Ioka from landing a combination of punches for a second attack.
In the fifth round of the bout, Pérez's fitness dropped significantly and he was no longer able to run in the ring like he had in previous rounds, so he was quickly caught up and firmly controlled by Kazusho Iaoka. After a series of attacks on Josper Pérez's body and head, Josper Pérez fell to his knees, but when the referee on duty counted 8, Josper Pérez stood up and signaled that he could restart the game. It wasn't long before Pérez fell to the ring after another straight right hand from Kazusho Ioka. Fortunately, the referee gave Pérez another chance to get him back up and continue the match, and he held on until the end of the round.
In the sixth round of the bout, Pérez ran out of energy and tried in vain to delay his defeat. However, in the second half of the round, Josper Pérez was hit by Kazusho Ioka and although he did not fall to the ground, he appeared to be seriously injured.
In the seventh round of the bout, Kazusho Ioka knocked Pérez to the canvas for the third time in the second half of the round, and although Pérez was still on his knees this time, the referee on duty decided that he was no longer capable of continuing the fight, so he stopped the fight. With that, Ioka defeated Josper Pérez by knockout at the 2:44 mark of the seventh round to defend his WBA Superropeweight World Title.
With this victory, Ioka improved his career record to 31-2-1, with 16 knockout victories. Kazusho Ioka also made good on his pre-fight promise to knock out his opponent.
After this match, the outside world is more concerned about whether Ioka Kazusho's next fight will be against Juan Francisco Estrada in a world champion unification fight. There's no exact word on when Ioka and Juan Francisco Estrada will resume talks, and while there have been reports that Juan Francisco Estrada could be promoted to the bantamweight division, Ioka said after the fight that he wants to fight Francisco Estrada around May 2024.