Champion Toshiki Shimomachi of Green Tsuda Boxing Gym stopped Tulio Dekanarudo of Muto Boxing Gym in the fifth round to retain his Japanese super bantamweight title on Apr. 13 at EDION Arena Osaka’s annex.

  After a relatively quiet start, the tall and left-handed Shimomahi floored Dekanarudo with a right uppercut in the fifth round.

  While Dekanarudo struggled to his feet and resumed fighting, Shimomachi quickly put him on the seat of his pants again with a right hook to the head.

  Though Dekanarudo wobbled to his feet and resumed fighting again, Shimomachi swarmed all over him by landing right and left hooks to the head, and the referee stepped in to call off the fight. Dekanarudo fell down on all fours immediately after. The technical knockout of the scheduled 10-rounder came 1 minute and 7 seconds into the round.

  It was Shimomachi’s second successful defense of the title he captured last June.

  After the fight, the 27-year-old Shimomachi said, ‘’I want to improve my boxing bit by bit so that I can take a crack at a world title eventually.’’

  Shimomachi improved his record to 18 wins, including 12 KOs, against a loss and three draws. Dekanarudo, also 27, fell to a 7-2-2 win-loss-draw tally with four KOs.