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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4277503, member: 289"] Woke up at just after 5AM. I'd normally turn over and go back to sleep but I remembered that the Inoue-Donaire rematch was about to start. Of course it wasn't. First I watched his younger brother, Takuma pound out a decision against one [URL='https://boxrec.com/en/proboxer/391495'][COLOR=rgb(0, 0, 0)]Gakuya Furuhashi[/COLOR][/URL], who looked more like Naoya than Takuma did, with blonde highlights in his hair. Takuma has plenty of talent but no power. He moved well and was very accurate. Furuhashi didn't have much defense. he threw 100 more punches than Takuma but they were wider an less accurate and he landed fewer punches. They was plenty of action. The fight was full of "Hollywood" punches, which landed flush but the other fighter was still standing there and continued his own assault. Furuhashi's face was the worse for wear by the end of the fight. I was more generous than the judges, giving Furuhashi one round and two even for a 119-111 final. One judge had it 119-109, the other two 120-108. Takuna is a super bantamweight. Like the Charlos, the bot hers will not fight for the same title so campaign in different divisions, (or half divisions) Then a fighter who was an obvious combination of a mixed marriage between people of Japanese and Africa descent, Andy Hiraoka, whose motivating factor was the bullying he received in Japan because of his mixed race, (boxing beats AR-15's any day), dominated a weak opponent, Sun Akaiwa, (7-3-1 at age 37) but fooled around too much, posing and clowning, before taking him out in the 6th round. He's a Super featherweight with a 20-0, 15KO record but doesn't look ready for the big time until he takes his job more seriously. Then came the main event. I wondered if the fight could possibly live up to the drama of the first one, which was the 2019 fight of the year, the normally dominant Inoue suffering a broken orbital bone and double-vision but knocking down Donaire with a body shot and pulling out the decision. I also wondered if the 39 year old Donaire might turn into an old man in the ring. He's been amazing. His last three fights were against undefeated fighters with a total record of 59-0. He lost the decision to Inoue and knocked out the other two. if he wasn't an old man when he entered the ring, Inoue quickly turned him into one. He was just too fast and powerful, decking Donair very late in the first round. When he got up Donaire looked shaken and Inoue might have finished him then but the bell rung. The bell couldn't save him in the second round. Inoue staggered Donaire a couple of times,. On the second on, Donaire stumbled halfway across the ring, which seemed to be swirling around him. Naoya then cornered him and decked him. Donaire was not out but was flat on his back when the referee ended it with no protests from Donaire or his corner. Like the song from Oklahoma said, he'd "gone about as far as he could go". The question is, where does Inoue go from here? He wants to unify the bantamweight title before the end of the year by winning the vacant IBF title but this was the one opponent that created any intrigue for a fight against "The Monster" - and now Inoue has destroyed him. I find it interesting that the 'ruling bodies', (who are basically organizations that make their money sanctioning title fights for a fee), are allowing their titles to be unified. Usually they find ways of manipulating their rules to avoid that. They may respond by finding ways to break up the titles again. Another interesting development was that the Japanese announce the judges' scoring every five rounds. Andre Ward didn't like it, saying that it would be a 'distraction'. I would think that a fighter would want to know where he stood. the fear has always been that a fighter ahead by a couple of rounds in a close fight would just dance around the ring in the 12th round, the equivalent of running out the clock in football or basketball. Either that or the fans would riot if they didn't like the scoring. But Takuma Inoue fought the 12th round, (it was for the WBO Asia Pacific title, so a 12 rounder rather than 10) the same way he fought the first, despite being ahead 10-1 or 11-0 in round on the judge's card. And if fan were going to riot at a partial score, they'd also riot at the final score. Back to bed. I highly recommend retirement. [/QUOTE]

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