{"id":933910,"date":"2026-05-03T00:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/933910\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T00:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:05:18","slug":"naoya-inoues-brother-takuma-drops-boxing-legend-kazuto-ioka-twice-in-dominant-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/933910\/","title":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue’s brother Takuma drops boxing legend Kazuto Ioka twice in dominant win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Takuma Inoue proved too fast, too sharp and too fresh for an ageing Kazuto Ioka on Saturday at the Tokyo Dome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inoue dropped Ioka twice en route to a lopsided unanimous decision win on the undercard of his older brother, Naoya’s, Japanese super fight with Junto Nakatani.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Inoue<\/a><\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

Inoue dropped Ioka in rounds two and threeCredit: AFP<\/p>\n

The three judges sided with the younger Inoue brother by margins of 119-107, 120-106 and 118-108.<\/p>\n

In victory, Inoue retains his WBC bantamweight title<\/a> and denies future Hall of Famer Ioka from becoming a five-weight world champion.<\/p>\n

A visibly emotional Inoue said post-fight: “It was a very intense battle from the first round to the third round, but it was very fun.<\/p>\n

“Thank you so much, Ioka, for fighting me.<\/p>\n

READ MORE ON BOXING <\/p>\n

“He is a legend, and I have been looking up to him throughout my career.<\/p>\n

“Because of him, this fight was great, and because of him I am stronger than ever.”<\/p>\n

Inoue (22-2) then called for a unification clash with one of the other champions at 118lbs (Seiya Tsutsumi, Jose Salas Reyes, and Christian Medina).<\/p>\n

Ioka (32-5) is now 1-3 in his last four fights and may very well have made the final ring walk of his storied career.<\/p>\n

Story of the fight<\/p>\n

The former pound-for-pound top 10 fighter looked every one of his 37 years as he was picked apart on the outside by Inoue.<\/p>\n

While Ioka was able to walk Inoue to the ropes, he rarely capitalised on the openings.<\/p>\n

The difference in speed was clear from the opening bell as Inoue repeatedly snapped back Ioka’s head with ram-rodding jabs.<\/p>\n

In the dying embers of round two, a sharp right-hand counter and a follow-up flurry sent Ioka tumbling to the canvas.<\/p>\n

But Ioka made his way back to his feet to hear the bell. <\/p>\n

Sensing his man was in trouble, Inoue put his foot on the gas in the third stanza and decked Ioka for a second time with a booming right uppercut. <\/p>\n

Ioka, once again, regained his footing and saw out the round.<\/p>\n

The rugged veteran rebounded well in the fourth and arguably nicked the round as Inoue eased off in an attempt to walk his adversary onto a finishing blow.<\/p>\n

Read More on talkSPORT<\/p>\n

However, from round five onwards, Inoue was back in control as he circled off the ropes and into the centre of the ring, peppering Ioka with sharp shots.<\/p>\n

Watch Boxing on DAZN<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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Click here to sign up<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Takuma Inoue proved too fast, too sharp and too fresh for an ageing Kazuto Ioka on Saturday at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,67080,261201,7177,8639,79,140867,16,66996,15],"class_list":["post-933910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-junto-nakatani","tag-kazuto-ioka","tag-naoya-inoue","tag-result","tag-sports","tag-takuma-inoue","tag-uk","tag-undercard","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116507726962154921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}