Fernando Martinez put in an excellent performance away from home.

The undefeated Argentine used raw aggression to sway the judges in a unanimous decision victory over Kazuto Ioka. The scores were 116-112, 117-111 and a criminally delicate 120-108 (Edward Hernandez Sr.) for Martinez.

With the victory, Martinez defended his IBF 115-pound world title and won the WBA belt on Sunday at the famed Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo.

In a junior bantamweight fight between the No. 2 and No. 3, Martinez set a furious pace from the opening bell. The energy he brought in his lively, carnival-like entrance carried over into the ring, where he landed warm punches in the first round. Ioka showed off his world-class chin throughout the fight. He weathered the storm every time, almost always coming back with his signature body shots.

Ioka continued to attack Martinez’s center, which was a source of discomfort for the 32-year-old Argentine. Martinez responded with tough right hooks and uppercuts that repeatedly snapped Ioka’s head back but couldn’t break his will.

Martinez repeatedly fought back-and-forth throughout much of the first half. Ioka, 35, consistently made key adjustments midway through each round. But the four-time world titleholder continued to have trouble keeping Martinez at bay.

Ioka finished the first half with a vicious body attack, while Martinez seemed to favor his left hand.

The momentum carried over into the second half as Martinez was visibly affected by Ioka’s left hook to the body. However, he stood lofty and came back sturdy, landing two punches in round eight. The high volume of combinations offered by Martinez provoked attacks from Ioka, who could only weather the storm.

Ioki’s left hook to the body found its mark several times. (Photo: Naoki Fukuda)

Patience paid off substantial time for Ioka, as he consistently landed pristine combinations in rounds nine and ten. Martinez was a constant presence, but had trouble defending against Ioka’s left hook from the bottom.

Ioka — who hails from Osaka, lives in Tokyo but trains in Las Vegas — dictated the pace in the latter stages. Martinez wisely created separation between them as Ioka tried to take him down with combinations. The strategy had some success, as he was able to land right hooks down the middle. Ioka took the punches well and responded with left hooks down low and rights up high.

The ever-energetic Martinez greeted the crowd at the end of the eleventh round before settling into his corner stool. He then openly embraced Ioka at the start of the twelfth and final round before doing his best work of the fight.

Martinez’s aggression paid off, with all three judges giving him the win over Ioka. (Photo: Naoki Fukuda)

Martinez’s right hook snapped Ioka’s head back, and he seemed more surprised than anything else, but didn’t respond right away. Martinez found his rhythm and was able to land punches as he constantly switched between his conventional and left-handed style. Ioka responded with combinations, as he had done throughout the fight, but not with the same force as he had for most of the second half of the round.

Martinez kept throwing until the very end, although he fell to the floor just before the final bell.

It was the best win of Martinez’s (17-0, 9 knockouts) career, and he fought away from home for the fifth time in a row.

He won the IBF title in February 2022 with a victory over long-reigning Jerwin Ancajas (34-4-2, 23 KOs) in Las Vegas. Martinez repeated the feat with a more convincing victory in an October 2022 rematch in Carson, Calif. His 2023 campaign has featured just one fight, an 11th-round knockout of unbeaten Jade Bornea on June 24 in Minneapolis.

The fight with Ioka was the culmination of a months-long title unification effort, with Martinez in talks with both Ioka and then-Ring/lineal/WBC champion Juan Francisco Estrada (44-4, 28 KOs).

Ioka (31-3-1, 16 KOs) fell tiny in his second attempt to become a unified two-division champion. He was already the first boxer in Japan to win belts in four divisions, but he fell tiny of making history in a 12-round draw with Joshua Franco in December 2022. A win would see Ioka unify the WBA and WBO belts, a decade after his unified reign as WBA/WBC strawweight champion.

The stalemate had additional repercussions. Ioka was forced to fight fellow countryman Junto Nakatani, but he decided to vacate the WBO belt to rematch Franco. Last June, he defeated the San Antonio native in Tokyo to win the WBA belt.

Franco is the older brother of Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez (20-0, 13 KOs), the No. 5 pound-for-pound contender in The Ring. He recently dethroned Estrada by seventh-round knockout to win The Ring/lineal/WBC 115-pound title and was ringside on Sunday.

The brother’s corner would be a great additional backdrop for a three-belt unification. Rodriguez will instead focus on a clash with Martinez, an original goal he set when he planned to return to junior bantamweight.

Ioka previously suggested that 2024 would be his final year in the sport. He has won titles at strawweight, junior flyweight, flyweight and junior bantamweight in a Hall of Fame-worthy career.

Meanwhile, Martinez continues to have a great time, and his career prospects have never looked better.

Martinez-Ioka’s performance was broadcast live on Japanese television ABEMA.

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Considering how exhilarating boxing is, how effortless it is to follow even with a basic understanding of what it takes to win a fight, and the incredible characters who shape the drama, it’s frustrating that the sport isn’t (universally) considered one of the greatest in the world.

Some will argue that this is the case, especially after the exceptional opening six months of 2024. But only those who promote their own companies within the boxing bubble, and thus enjoy something like a lucrative period, make such claims with any validity. Outside that bubble, where the general public is usually only teased once or twice a year, the view is somewhat different.

Despite colossal events like Tyson Fury-Oleksandr Usyk, boxing simply doesn’t change often enough. It’s a sport known for the occasional huge fight, but who, apart from you and me, pays attention to the thousands of other fights often enough for it to become a household staple?

The lack of interest can largely be explained by a long-standing, if understandable, reluctance to turn boxing into an organised enterprise. After all, it is not a team sport, nor has it ever been a slave to the clock, the calendar year or the fixture list, and so the tried and tested format of mainstream sports – one that ensures leagues, cups and tournaments are effortless to digest at set times and on set dates – simply does not exist here.

While it does warrant extra interest when spectacular fights suddenly happen – simply because they happen so rarely – the more familiar chaos often prevents the best fights from happening, and while the absurd number of belts on offer may indeed mean more ‘world title’ fights, it only serves to confuse casual sports fans. If you disagree, go tell one of the million or more who bought into the Fury-Usyk fuss that Daniel Dubois is now the heavyweight champion of the world and you’ll see their eyes glaze over as you try to explain why, just two months later, there’s no longer an undisputed king.

In recent months, thanks almost exclusively to the involvement of the Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority – headed by Turki Alalshikh – the number of elite-level fights has increased dramatically. As has the unification of titles. It’s a welcome trend. As for boxing, it’s demanding to deny that it’s in a good place, so it might seem a bit rude to criticize it here, especially considering Alalshikh’s plans at an advanced stage.

But is the sport really healing, or has a giant silk plaster simply been slapped on senior wounds? After all, it will take more than sporadic cash injections from the Middle East to make changes last, to ensure that any improvements are widespread and sustainable in the long term. What’s more, while we can dress the windows with eye-catching competitions, it’s equally essential to ensure that the rest of the shop is well-stocked and properly managed for the business to truly thrive.

Here are six issues boxing needs to address to become a leading sport.

1. ONE WORLD CHAMPION IN EACH DIVISION

There are four sanctioning bodies (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO) recognized in the sport – five if you include the IBO. All have different rankings and none have a governing body, other than the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC), to which they must answer.

So – bear with me – the champion of one organization cannot be ranked by other organizations, and as a result, there is no single rule, commission or sanctioning body that requires the best to compete against the best.

The rules of the WBC, arguably the most influential of all ranking organizations, state: “No champion from another boxing organization will be placed in the top ten because his boxing duties do not allow him to challenge for the WBC title. Accordingly, such opportunities will be granted to those fighters who express a desire to challenge for the WBC title.” No sport could thrive under such absurd circumstances.

While seasoned boxing fans have reluctantly accepted this system, studied the conflicting rankings, and lost their minds over the sheer insanity of it all, it is exceptionally arduous to explain to those interested in just a little bit why there can be five or more “world” champions in some weight classes.

There are often several world title fights in the same category in a tiny period of time, sometimes even on the same event, with different boxers taking part in all of them, and each belt holder is presented to the public – with a straight face – as world champion. Case in point, the three-week stretch in 2020 between Oct. 17 and Nov. 7 when Teofimo Lopez, Gervonta Davis, and Devin Haney all paraded versions of the lightweight world title. Imagine for a moment that you were fresh to the sport, were all excited to see Lopez beat Vasiliy Lomachenko, and bought into the story about him being the fresh 135-pound champion, only to be introduced to not one but two more who supposedly also ruled the lightweight world just days later.

While Dubois-Anthony Joshua is a huge heavyweight clash and was likely settled at the negotiating table by the IBF belt, are we really going to try to pass it off as a world title fight just five months after we all went wild over the undisputed champion being crowned for the first time in 25 years? Those in the promotion’s heartland might think the IBF title adds extra glamour to the fight. The truth is, Dubois-Joshua sells huge time – with or without the red leather belt.

The bottom line is that the current championship system is too convoluted to understand, and if the general public can’t understand it and invest their time and money into something instead, that something will have a demanding time growing. Simply put, boxing should have a championship system that is as effortless to understand as the fights themselves.

One world champion in each weight class would dispel this confusion and make our sport more attractive – not only to fans, but also to the wider media, which, apart from specialist media, only learns about boxing’s existence when a truly massive fight takes place.

So how did we get into this mess? The proliferation of titles is attractive to both promoters and broadcasters because they can dress up more fights as “world title fights.” Some argue that a single champion would limit the options for contenders, and there’s some truth to that. But do other sports suffer because only a select few win the top prize?

The fact that so many title fights go unnoticed outside the boxing bubble shows that all the extra belts dilute both interest and quality. And it’s not just the fault of promoters, broadcasters and sanctioning bodies – the belts are now so ingrained in the consciousness of the entire sport that changing the system will require a monumental effort from the entire industry.

Is there a solution? With four (or five) sanctioning bodies, perhaps just recognizing one of them would lend a hand. But for that to happen, the one that remains would have to address its current policies – regarding rankings, sanctioning fees, cozy relationships with certain influential brokers, and its attitude to performance enhancing drugs – to really stand out from the crowd. And while there are better organizations than others, it’s unrealistic to expect one to rise while the others fall.

There have been repeated rumors that a superpower—such as Saudi Arabia or even Dana White—could buy all the bodies to gain total control. But then what?

A more reasonable solution seems to be to create a better system – one that, over time, makes the senior system completely irrelevant. “That will never happen,” everyone groans. But why not? If you can spend half a billion on a single event – ​​which is what was reportedly the fee for putting on Fury-Francis Ngannou last year – surely there’s money to fix a broken system?

Creating a title that only the best fighters can compete with would go some way to quickly building a following. And being the absolute best fighter in the world would suit the ego and competitive spirit of top boxers very well – especially if there was a clear path to that status. The elimination fights would become huge events – think quarter-finals and semi-finals of major tournaments – and ruling that championships must be held three times a year would ensure regular, top-flight action.

Adding an additional cash prize for winning and defending a title – as opposed to the sanctioning fees boxers currently have to pay to fight for the alphabetical titles – would also make the process easier.

O’Shaquie Foster is still reeling from losing his WBC super featherweight world title to number one contender Robson Conceicao last Saturday night via split decision after twelve rounds at the Prudential Center in Newark, Novel Jersey.

Foster’s later aide that he not only deserved the decision but should have won every round suggests a disconnect from the reality of what happened. He was outworked by Conceicao, which is why the judges awarded the victory to the talented Brazilian.

Conceicao wanted it more

After the fight, Conceicao said Foster “didn’t come to fight,” but moved and played defense. He’s right. Foster fought like a fighter who didn’t want to work firm.

That’s just his style though, as he’s barely scraped a win in his last two fights because he only managed to rally at the end after being crushed by Abraham Nova and Eduardo Hernandez.

Foster only trains part-time during fights because he doesn’t feel like putting in the firm work, something he paid for in his fight with the ambitious and well-trained 2016 Olympic gold medalist Conceicao.

Incredibly, Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) claimed after the fight that he had won every round, and the judges treated him cruelly by not awarding him the victory.

The judges scored it 116-112, 115-113 for Conceicao and 116-112 for Foster. My score was 117-111 in favor of Conceicao.

I watched the fight on a large screen TV and saw no issues with the two judges scoring it in favor of Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs). He was the busier fighter, throwing punches, pressing the offense and keeping Foster on the ropes.

Foster’s Shakur Style: Defense Over Attack

Foster fought in his usual Shakur style, trying to make Conceicao miss and rarely landing any punches. His entire game was focused on defense, not landing any punches, but this was pure Shakur-eque from the Foster champion. You can’t win like that against a fighter who throws more and keeps you pinned to the ropes like Conceicao did.

In the championship rounds, Foster should have given it his all and landed some punches, but instead he held onto the ropes, trying to just make Conceicao miss and fight his way to what he believed was a decision victory.

It’s no surprise that Foster didn’t push firm in the final four innings, because if he thought he was throwing a shutout, why would he risk throwing? He was deceived and overconfident. Someone in his career should have taught him the importance of offense and getting off the line.

Ultimately, Foster had a stupid fight that cost him the belt. He did the same thing in his previous match with Abraham Nova, but won by decision, scoring a knockdown.

Defense doesn’t win fights

“He didn’t come to fight. He didn’t seem to want to fight me. I really wanted to fight him, so I went in to win and that’s it,” Conceicao told Fighthype about his victory over Foster.

“O’Shaqui’s fight, I tell my players that all the time. Defending is one thing, attacking is another,” said coach Kenny Ellis MillCity Boxingtalking about last Saturday’s fight, in which the talented Robson Conceicao finally got a fair chance with the judges, defeating the WBC super featherweight champion, Shakur-like O’Shaquie Foster, by split decision in a twelve-round fight.

Ellis brings up a good point. Defense doesn’t win fights. Letting go of your hands does, and Foster forgot that lesson. If you’re indolent and think you can win a fight just by defending, sooner or later you’re going to lose, and that didn’t happen to Foster.

“Defense will last you a long career, but because you’re sliding, you’re defending and you’re not scoring. That’s defense. You’re giving up hits. Every once in a while, Foster would come back with one or two,” Ellis said.

“He would do the shoulder roll, but he didn’t react like Floyd. Floyd would make you miss and pay. Every now and then Foster would come in with one shot here and there. The other guy [Conceicao] actually worked, and then you don’t know what the judges were looking at from their perspective.”

Foster tried to block and move with the punches that Conceicao was throwing. He didn’t counter anything and just kept going with the punches. When he attacked, he was always miniature and then went back into his shell.

I think the fans who were upset about Foster’s loss were his supporters and couldn’t see the truth even when it was right in front of them.

A Lesson for Foster

They didn’t want the ugly reality of their hero exposed by the hard-working Brazilian Conceicao, who learned early on that success comes from firm work. You can’t back down and expect victory to be handed to you on a silver platter.

“O’Shaquie is on the ropes and [judges] they look at him [Conceicao] back [throwing punches and being busier]. Even though he missed a few shots, they thought he was hitting. Defense is good, but hands win fights. He [O’Shaquie] “I didn’t get enough done yesterday,” Ellis said.

Conceicao landed a ton of punches, especially the right punches he landed on Foster. They kept going through him, and he kept attacking. Conceicao didn’t retreat to the ropes to rest and play dead like Foster.

“Go back and watch the fight. Yeah, he made him miss a lot of times. ‘Oh, look what I did.’ You don’t win. You just make the guy miss. Go back and make him miss and make him pay. He didn’t do that. He did it in fits and starts last night. That’s it. He wasn’t busy enough.

“Defense is a handsome thing, but you don’t win because you make someone miss. You don’t win. Hands win fights. He was fluid on his feet. He made people miss, but he didn’t respond with anything. I think they made the right decision,” Ellis said, believing the judges were right to award the win to Conceicao.

It’s great to have a defense, but if that’s all you have, it’s not enough if you’re fighting a good opponent and the judges are top-notch. Three worse judges could have given Foster a decision last Saturday, but not these three brilliant judges.

“His defense was good, but he didn’t come back with anything. I didn’t see a shutout now. It was in bursts,” Ellis said, responding to the report that Foster said after the fight that he felt he had thrown a shutout at Conceicao.

Foster’s entire game was based on dashing, being indolent, and letting Conceicao do all the firm work.

If Foster’s coach hasn’t warned him how grave his situation is, he should get rid of this person and find someone who understands the rhythm of the fight and can tell his fighter the bitter truth, even if he’s deluded that he’s winning on points.

Sullied game. One of the easiest fights of my life, we will do everything possible to fix this. But I will tell you this in the rematch, he will not last to 12, I promise you that!!

— SH⚡️CK (@OshaquieFoster) July 7, 2024