Kenshiro Teraji retained the WBA and WBC light flyweight belts when he stopped Anthony Olascuaga at 58 seconds into the ninth round of a fight that was scheduled for 12 rounds in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday.
Olascuaga came in as a substitute for the WBO champion Jonathan Gonzalez, who withdrew from the fight after suffering from pneumonia in what was a scheduled unification bout.
Olasccuaga, a flyweight, had to reduce weight drastically to fight in the lower division but showed tremendous courage and took the fight to the champion.
However, this was not enough as Teraji picked up the pace in rounds seven and eight before scoring a knockdown with a barrage of punches in round nine, as referee Mark Nelson stepped in to stop the fight with the badly hurt challenger unable to continue.
Teraji improved his record to 21-1; 13 and Olascuaga’s record dropped to 5-1; 3.
On the same card, Takuma Inoue (18-1; 4) won the vacant WBA bantamweight title on a 12-round unanimous points decision against Loborio Solis (35-7-1; 16).
The scores were 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112.