On Monday, January 14, at the Bunka Gym In Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan, two-time WBA super flyweight champion Alexander Munoz retained his title with a hard-fought 12-round decision over former WBC super flyweight champion Katsushige Kawashima. It was Munoz' second defense of his second reign and it was not an easy one.

Alexander Munoz vs Kuniyuki Aizawa





Alexander Munoz vs Ceres Kobayashi





The 28-year-old Munoz started quickly. In the first round, he jabbed his way inside and pounded Kawashima's body. In the second, both fighters threw a ton of punches but missed often. Munoz took the round by missing less frequently than his 33-year-old challenger. The third round was a cross between the first two with Munoz again winning it.



Kawashima came on strong in the 4th round, taking it handily. He landed left hooks to Munoz' head and body and also scored with wild-looking right crosses.



The Yokohama native was loading up his shots again in the 5th but often missed badly. Munoz won the round with more accurate punches, mostly on the inside. Kawashima scored slightly more in the 6th but not enough to add the round to his column.



In the 7th stanza, the two veteran warriors exchanged heavily with the champion winning the round with uppercuts and hooks but eating right hands from the challenger in the process.



The 8th was a big round for Kawashima. Starting with a pinpoint left, punches from the challenger rained on the champion- much to the partisan crowd's delight but the 9th was a different story. Munoz outscored Kawashima by a slight margin to basically insure a decision win.



Kawashima again loaded up on his shots during the last 3 rounds. He went for broke, trying to score a knockout but again often sent punches by rather than at the champ. The determined challenger's aggressiveness, coupled with Munoz' fatigue, led to Kawashima sweeping the last 3 rounds. Munoz, visibly tiring, did manage to bounce a beautiful right hand off Kawashima's forehead in the 11th.



When it was over, two of the judges scored the fight close, 115-114 and 115-113, for Munoz (as did TTR, 115-113). The third judge had the defending champion winning by a bigger margin, 117-111.



With the win, Munoz, who initially reigned from 2002 to 2004 and then regained the belt this past May, raised his record to 32-2 with 27 KOs. Kawashima, who announced his retirement after the fight, finished his career with a 32-7 record including 21 victories by knockout.



On the undercard:



The WBA's no. 1 ranked minimumweight Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez was extended the distance for the first time oin his career by former contender Hiroshi Matsumoto. Gonzalez, also ranked #6 by the WBC and #13 by the WBO, improved to 17-0 with 16 KOs. Matsumoto, who first earned a world-ranking by beating then WBA interim minimumweight champion Songkram Porpaoin in a non-title bout in 1999, slipped to 17-8-4 with 8 KOs.



Super featherweight prospect Satoshi Hosono (10-0, 8 KOs) stopped veteran Keita Manabe (26-4-1, 22 KOs) at 2:23 of the 5th round of a scheduled 10-rounder.



WBC #38 ranked light flyweight Shigetaka Ikehara (15-1-1, 11 KOs) won a narrow, unanimous decision (96-95 on all 3 cards) over flyweight Masayuki Kuroda (10-2, 8 KOs).



Super flyweight Daiki Uema (3-0, 2 KOs) knocked out Hiroshi Ikeda (4-7, 2 KOs) at 0:49 of the 3rd round of a slated 6 and, in a scheduled 4-rounder, welterweight Tsukasa Matsuoka (3-0, 3 KOs) dropped Daisuke Nakajima (2-9, 1 KO) for the count at 1:40 of the 1st round.