Kenta Nakagawa hammered out a ninth-round technical decision over top-ranked Yuta Matsuo to retain his Japanese super flyweight title on July 22 at Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall.

The end of the scheduled 10-rounder came 1 minute and 55 seconds into the round when the 34-year-old Nakagawa suffered a severe injury above his left eye while Matsuo suffered a nasty cut in his forehead, which forced the fight to be stopped immediately.

The decision had to go to three judges’ scorecards, in which all of them were in favor of Nakagawa, who retained the title he captured last December for the first time. For his part, it was the 30-year-old Matsuo’s third unsuccessful challenge to the title.

With the victory, Nakagawa is the sixth Japanese champion of the Misako Boxing Gym in Tokyo, the largest in history.
The match and other undercard bouts were held as a closed-door event.