[kenyan_cheena]

EL UNIVERSAL

Monday 18 December 2006

BOLANOS SETS UP
ALL-MEXICAN TITLE FIGHT!

Story by Miguel Trelles

Durango-born lightweight Enrique Bolanos scored a somewhat surprising 8th round TKO victory over Japan's Jaguar Kakizawa last night to win the IBL Challenger's tournament final and set up what will be the league's first all-Mexican world title fight. Competing at Tokyo's Ariake Coliseum Bolanos recorded his second consecutive stoppage win in the tournament, completing the outstanding double of defeating the tournament's top two seeds. He decimated #1 seed Greg Haugen in the semi-finals, knocking him out in round five. Against Kakizawa he made a fantastic start, dominating the opening two rounds and never looking back. Kakizawa showed signs of promise in rounds three and five but when Bolanos came close to ending it in the 7th the writing was on the wall. He bamboozled Kakizawa with an all-out assault in round eight, referee Jimmy Hicks stepping in and saving the exhausted Japanese fighter from further harm at the 2:06 mark.

Kakizawa had been considerably more impressive than Bolanos through the preliminaries, winning all three of his bouts while Bolanos had scraped through to the semi-finals by virtue of his higher seeding in back-to-back draws. That meant nothing last night, Bolanos setting up what will be a hugely anticipated clash with lightweight world champion Rafael Limon who had defeated Kakizawa's countryman Teruki Nakata to win the title on Friday night. Bolanos outlanded Kakizawa 238-155 on the way to his 23rd career win, his record now 23-2-3(17). Kakizawa fell to 28-5-1(16). Bolanos will be a considerable underdog when he steps in the ring against Limon but should not be written off after his fantastic efforts against Haugen and Kakizawa. The fact that he is a natural lightweight while Limon had spent his entire career at junior-lightweight before joining the IBL could also work in his favour.

Earlier in the evening Venezuela's Leonel Hernandez kicked the card off in explosive fashion when he knocked out Ghana's Samuel Mensah with a flush left hook two minutes into round one, the win upping the 28 year-old's record to 32-4-1(23). Hernandez was defeated by South Africa's Brian Mitchell in the quarter-finals of the world championship tournament and will start 2007 ranked at #13 in the lightweight division. In the second bout on the card Kazakhstan's Anatoly Alexandrov scored a 9th round knockout of Detroit's Jackie Beard. Alexandrov (18-5-1(13)) was trailing by two points on two scorecards going into the 9th and turned Beard's lights out with a thunderous left-right salvo two minutes into the round. The win snapped a two-fight losing streak for Alexandrov and secured the #10 world ranking for him.

Greg Haugen fell to his second consecutive defeat in the co-feature, dropping a unanimous decision verdict to Hiroshi Kobayashi in a bout that provided the packed arena with their only shining moment on the night. Kobayashi had sent former junior-lightweight titlist Hector Hernandez to his first career defeat in the quarter-finals of the world championship tournament before losing to Nakata in the semis. He defeated Haugen by scores of 96-94 (twice) and 97-93 to improve his record to 28-3-1(22) and ensure he'll be ranked at #5 in the division's initial world rankings. Haugen is now 26-5-1(17). He'll be the 6th-ranked fighter in the world to start '07 and faces a tough matchup with Ruben Navarro in his first fight of the new year. Both men were eliminated in the semi-finals of the Challenger's tournament, Navarro also losing in his most recent bout against Brian Mitchell. After those back-to-back losses both men will be desperate to avoid a third straight defeat.

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IBL Lightweight Challenger's tournament final

(#4) Enrique Bolanos (22-2-3(16)) TKO8 (#2) Jaguar Kakizawa (28-4-1(16))

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