Puerto Rican standout Ren\u00e9 \u201cEl Chulo\u201d Santiago further cemented his reputation as a Japanese spoiler, successfully defending his unified WBA and WBO light flyweight world titles with a unanimous decision victory over former world champion Masataka Taniguchi. The high-level tactical battle took place Friday, April 3, at Tokyo\u2019s iconic Korakuen Hall, marking Santiago\u2019s third consecutive win on Japanese soil.<\/p>\n
The bout unfolded in two distinct phases. In the early rounds, Taniguchi used his southpaw stance and superior hand speed to trouble the champion, landing sharp combinations that gave him a slight edge on the scorecards. However, the turning point came in the fifth round, when Santiago landed a perfectly timed counter right hook that sent the Japanese fighter to the canvas. Though Taniguchi rose quickly, the knockdown dramatically shifted the momentum and psychology of the fight.<\/p>\n
From that moment on, \u201cEl Chulo\u201d took full control. Showcasing ring IQ and composure, the Humacao native relied on lateral movement and a tight defensive shell to neutralize the challenger\u2019s offense. In the championship rounds, Santiago displayed excellent conditioning, maintaining his punch output while avoiding the kind of risky exchanges Taniguchi desperately needed to turn the tide.<\/p>\n
After twelve rounds, the judges confirmed Santiago\u2019s command with scores of 117-110, 116-111, and 114-113, all in favor of the defending champion.<\/p>\n
With the victory, Santiago improves to 16-4 with 9 knockouts and joins fellow standouts like Oscar Collazo and Xander Zayas as part of the new wave of Puerto Rican fighters holding unified world titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Puerto Rican standout Ren\u00e9 \u201cEl Chulo\u201d Santiago further cemented his reputation as a Japanese spoiler, successfully defending his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-585795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}