The Japan Boxing Commission said on Jan. 22 it gave World Boxing Organization super flyweight champion Kazuto Ioka of Ambition GYM and the gym’s head Takuya Kiya a stern warning for having revealed his tattooed left arm in his fight against top-ranked challenger Kosei Tanaka of Soul Box Hatanaka Boxing Gym on New Year’s Eve last year in Tokyo, in which Ioka retained the title for the second time with an eighth-round technical knockout.

The JBC gave the warning by holding an ethical committee meeting on Jan. 21, in which the committee said he (Ioka) kept fighting despite the fact that the covering agent to hide the tattoo fell off, which runs counter to item 2 of Article 95 of the JBC rule that says ‘’a person who gives disagreeableness to spectators such as wearing a tattoo cannot participate in a boxing match.’’

JBC Secretary General Tsuyoshi Yasukochi said, ‘’We at the JBC should have tightened the control through and through. If similar things happen by any chance, we are thinking about having a tattooed boxer use the JBC-selected covering agent or the boxer must go through the coating procedure from our designated specialist.’’

‘’While we have received various opinions on the problem of tattoos, we have no intention to change our rules at present,’’ according to the comment issued by Yasukochi.