Japanese southpaw Junto Nakatani knocked out Giemel Magramo in the eighth round on Friday to capture the WBO world flyweight crown in his maiden world title fight and the first held in Japan during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The 22-year-old Nakatani, the WBO's third-ranked contender, improved to 21-0 in his pro career with his 16th knockout. Although Magramo came out punching hard, Nakatani's longer reach allowed him to attack at will and dictate the pace.
The 26-year-old Filipino, the WBO's top-ranked contender, was knocked down in the seventh and had no answer to a series of punishing lefts in the eighth that eventually floored him. His record fell to 24-2.
"I landed some good punches in the first round," Nakatani said after the fight that was scheduled to go 12 rounds. "Magramo is a good fighter but I had a good approach today. He is really tough, but I was able to establish a good distance from him and in that sense I felt I boxed well tonight."
"Now that I'm a flyweight champ, I have to look toward other objectives, and one of those is to win a title unification fight."
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