川村を倒し王座奪取の渡来

Kawamura, pressing forward with a high guard, firmly absorbed Watarai’s flurry of punches with both arms and aimed a left hook from his right. However, perhaps because he was putting too much effort into blocking Watarai’s powerful strikes, his counterpunches were too forced and lacked both sharpness and speed. In response, Watarai gradually began mixing in a variety of angles and varying the intensity of his strikes in an attempt to break through Kawamura’s solid guard.
Starting in the third round, Watarai picked up the pace and landed left and right uppercuts. Entering the fourth round, he unleashed a flurry of uppercuts following quick, short steps to the left and right, causing Kawamura to bleed from the nose. Watarai had undoubtedly planted the threat of his uppercuts firmly in Kawamura’s mind.
In the fifth round, having made Kawamura wary of both his uppercuts and side hooks, Watarai landed a superb one-two straight on target. As Kawamura fell to his butt, unable to continue, the referee declared the fight over without calling a count.
“I’m really happy to have secured the win by KO. As a Japanese boxer who embodies world-class boxing, I want to win the world title someday,” said Watarai (27), who now has a record of 9 wins (6 KOs), 1 loss. Kawamura (26), who failed in his first title defense, now stands at 7 wins (4 KOs), 1 loss, and 1 draw.