Yoshiki Takei of Ohashi Boxing Gym, scoring an opening-round knockdown, stopped Bruno Tarimo of Australia in the 11th round to retain his Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation super bantamweight title on Dec. 13 in Tokyo.

It was the 26-year-old Takei’s first successful defense of the title he captured from Pete Apolinar of the Philippines in August this year.

The technical knockout of the scheduled 12-rounder came 2 minutes and 17 seconds into the round when the cut Tarimo suffered accidentally above his right eyelid in the seventh round became worsened, and the referee stopped the contest and declared Takei’s victory.

While left-handed Takei, the winner of a former K-1 super bantamweight grand prix before becoming a professional boxer in March last year, suffered a slight cut above his left eyelid with an accidental head butt in the first round, he scored a knockdown with a straight left and a right hook to the head for a mandatory eight count.

But gutsy Tarimo, also southpaw, began to retaliate from there by moving forward while throwing wild punches.

The fleet-footed Takei fended off Tarimo’s offense while piling up points by landing right hooks and uppercuts until the stoppage.

After the fight, Takei said, ‘’My opponent was tough. That kind of fight was within the scope of the assumption. But honestly, I feel chagrined as I really wanted to knock him out.’’

With the victory, Takei extended his unbeaten streak to six, all by KO, while the 27-year-old Tarimo, ranked 10th in the division, fell to a 26-4-2 win-loss-draw tally with five KOs.

The fight served as one of the undercards of the world bantamweight title unification fight between Naoya Inoue of Ohashi gym and Paul Butler of Britain.