{"id":314364,"date":"2025-11-28T13:40:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314364\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T13:40:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:40:17","slug":"midorikawa-dethrones-nwachukwu-november-28-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314364\/","title":{"rendered":"Midorikawa dethrones Nwachukwu \u00bb November 28, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image001_resize-30.jpg\" alt=\"Image001 Resize\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-177974\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>By Joe Koizumi<\/p>\n<p>Photos by Naoki Fukuda<\/p>\n<p>Former kick-boxing champ, 38-year-old Tsukuru Midorikawa (5-0, 3 KOs; WKBA kick-boxing 56-18), 153.75, surprisingly wrested the OPBF (Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation) super welter belt as he was awarded a controversial split decision (all 95-94; two for the challenger, one for the champ) over defending titlist Nath Nwachukwu (9-5-2, 4 KOs), 153.75, on Thursday in Tokyo, Japan.  Why was this result surprising and controversial?  Tsukuru too often repeated grabbing and holding the arms of the champ.  Nath, the son of a Nigerian father and a Japanese mother, kept throwing punches on the peek-a-boo stylist\u2019s gloves and head, while Tsukuru occasionally connected with a few countering left hooks.  It was only in the final round that the referee eventually deducted a point from the foul-repeating challenger, which was obviously too late.  This reporter saw it 96-93 for the dethroned champ Nath, who deserves a rematch.<\/p>\n<p>Promoter: Hachioji Nakaya Promotions, Ohashi Promotions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxrec.com\/en\/box-pro\/1274846\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/boxrec.com\/en\/box-pro\/1274846<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t   <a href=\"https:\/\/fightnews.com\/narai-sinks-kajino-keeps-japans-130lb-belt\/177951\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Narai Sinks Kajino; Keeps Japan\u2019s 130lb Belt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n        PLEASE READ<br \/>We have a few rules to make our comment section more enjoyable for everyone.<br \/>1. Keep comments related to boxing.<br \/>2. Be respectful, polite and keep it clean.<br \/>3. Personal attacks will not be tolerated.<br \/>Offending posts will be removed.<br \/>Repeat offenders will be put on moderation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joe Koizumi Photos by Naoki Fukuda Former kick-boxing champ, 38-year-old Tsukuru Midorikawa (5-0, 3 KOs; WKBA kick-boxing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-314364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}