Japanese former kickboxing world champion Yoshiki Takei landed his first major title in boxing on May 6 at Tokyo Dome, where he dethroned Jason Moloney of Australia. The pair squared off in the co-feature on the card topped by Naoya Inoue vs Luis Nery.
The scheduled for 12 rounds world championship bout went the full distance. The representative of the country-host out-landed the defending champion from Australia, earning the win by unanimous decision.
As can be seen in the fight video up top, in the final round Moloney hurt Takei and was on a mission to stop the challenger with a flurry of punches in hopes to pull the win. As the bell rang, the scores were 116-111, 116-111 and 117-110, all in favor of the local southpaw.
With the victory, Yoshiki Takei became a new WBO bantamweight champion, lifting a world title in his ninth pro fight. Tokyo’s 27-year-old remained unbeaten and improved to 9-0, 8 KOs.
Jason Moloney didn’t succeed in his second title defense. The 33-year-old Melbourne native dropped to 27-3, 19 KOs, which snapped his six-fight winning streak.
In the main event, Japan’s Naoya Inoue (27-0, 24 KOs) retained his undisputed super bantamweight title by knockout in the sixth round against Luis Nery of Mexico. On his way to victory, “Monster” went down in the first round and then floored his opponent three times.