Champion Elwin Soto of Mexico, landing combination blows to the head, stopped Katsunari Takayama of Neyagawa Ishida Boxing Club in the ninth round to retain his World Boxing Organization light flyweight title on May 8 (May 9 Japan time) at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, United States.

The end of the scheduled 12-round fight came 2 minutes and 44 seconds into the round when Soto connected with power punches to the head, wherein American referee Laurence Cole stepped in to call off the fight.

While the 37-year-old Takayama, ranked 11th in the division by the WBO, displayed shadowboxing after the stoppage, Takayama’s face was puffed up. There were no knockdowns in the fight.

With the technical knockout victory, the 24-year-old Soto made his third successful defense of the title he won from Angel Acosta of Puerto Rico in June 2019, and improved his record to 19 wins, including 13 knockouts, against a loss.

For his part, Takayama fell to a 32-9 win-loss tally with one no-contest. He has 12 KOs.
Fighting before some 70,000 spectators at the stadium, Soto got off to a good start as he staggered the Japanese with overhand right midway through the first round and sent him almost to the canvas late in the round with right-left combination blows.

But Takayama, who had held world minimumweight titles of the sport’s all four major governing bodies at different times, recovered from the second round as he landed his straight rights to the head and body while moving side-to-side quickly.

While Takayama continued throwing a high volume of punches, the Mexican kept trying to take out Takayama with infrequent power punches and made Takayama backpedal late in the sixth round. Soto stepped up his offense visibly in the seventh and eighth rounds, which eventually led to the ninth-round stoppage.

After the fight, Takayama said, ‘’I was surprised the referee stopped the fight suddenly since I had a lot of stamina left and did not get big damage. I avoided Soto’s core punches. I shadowboxed to prove I am still Okay and acknowledge the fan’s big cheering. Though I had to accept the result of the fight, I will set my sights on my next fight.’’

The Soto-Takayama bout served as the chief supporting card for the highly touted world super middleweight title unification bout between Saul ‘’Canelo’’ Alvarez of Mexico and Billy Joe Saunders of Britain.