It seems the fine art of scum-baggery has made its way to the women’s side of the sport and former super-flyweight title holder Riyo Togo (10-5-1, 9 KO’s) is the artist at hand.
Last week’s high profile rematch between Togo and Mariana Juarez (37-7-3, 16 KO’s) took a hit when Togo was found to be wearing doctored gloves in which the padding had been removed from the front, leaving Togo basically bare-fisted save hand wraps and the leather skin of the glove.
Luckily for Juarez, this play straight out of the Panama Lewis/Louie Resto playbook was discovered during a prefight inspection by Juarez’s camp, and the matter was brought to the attention of WBC supervisor Dr. Lorenzo Soberanes. Both fighters’ gloves were replaced and the fight went on, with Juarez winning a 10 round unanimous decision as was reported last week.
You’ll remember three months ago, Togo stopped Juarez rather easily in the first round with a single left hook. Of course now, there’s an Eric Esch size question mark hovering over that victory, as well as the other nine knockouts Togo has scored in her career.
It goes without saying that this behavior is disgusting. Of course Togo wasn’t the first and sadly, won’t be the last boxer to give cheating a try. What’s worse than simply looking for an unfair advantage, is the fact that Togo and her people had no problem putting another fighters life at risk in an attempt to win…just to win. Never mind the fact that Togo just negated the biggest win of her career and has basically zero credibility at this point.
Unfortunately, the matter went unreported here in the States, but was thankfully covered by The Boxing Tribune’s Editor in Chief Paul Magno for Yahoo! Sports HERE.
Anyway, on with the wrap…
WBA and WBO world light flyweight champion Yesica Bopp (25-1, 11 KO’s) jumped back into the winners circle with a solid performance against Anastasia Toktaulova (14-12-2 KO’s) at the Racing Club in Avellaneda, Buenos Aires, Argentina Friday night.
Bopp, who suffered her first career defeat last month in a non-title bout against Jessica Chavez, easily out boxed the challenger, taking a 100-90 decision on all three scorecards. Considered by many to be one of the top female pound for pound fighters worldwide, she has now made 15 successful title defenses.
This was Toktaulova’s second consecutive loss. She briefly held the WIBA and WBC light flyweight titles in 2011, but has been highly inactive since 2008; after no fights in 2009, she’s fought only once a year since so…I guess we’ll see her again sometime on 2014.
In Uruguay, WBA lightweight champion Cecilia Comunales (11-1, 7 KO’s) made quick work of Marisol Reyes (11-7-1, 5 KO’s) stopping her in the first round.
Making the second defense of her title, Comunales dropped Reyes at the midpoint of round one with a simple left-right combination. Reyes beat the count and did her best to defend herself but, throwing every type of punch except a straight one, left herself wide open for the champion, who landed a series of clean headshots dropping Reyes for a second time, causing the bout to be waved off with 12 seconds left in the round.
Comunales, who won the title in March of 2012 with a first round stoppage of Maribel Santana, is now on a five fight winning streak as opposed to Reyes, who was riding a four fight winning streak until Saturday.
Monday night fights in Japan, headlining the card at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, WBA super flyweight titlist Naoko Yamaguchi (22-3-3, 18 KO’s) stopped Chuthaporn Pradissan (5-15) in a non-title bout. Yamaguchi, also a former OPBF super flyweight champion, has now won seven straight since losing to Ana Maria Torres in 2011. Pradissan has now lost five straight, the last three by knockout.
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