Marlon Tapales failed in his bid to revive his championship hopes as he fell to Japanese fighter Yukinori Oguni via unanimous decision the other day at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo Japan.
Tapales had been on a four-fight winning streak after his defeat to another Japanese fighter, the legendary Naoya Inoue in which he gave a good account of himself despite the loss.
THE FIGHT. Tapales came out strong in the early rounds, chugging forward while Oguni boxed cautiously.
There were a couple of instances where Marlon was able to land his left straight then follow it up with combinations as Oguni covered up. Oguni boxed well enough and he often landed clearly, especially when he initiated the exchange.
The fight was pretty even up until the middle rounds, but the tide turned after Marlon was cut. Oguni also started targeting the body and this netted him dividends in the last quarter of the fight as Tapales’ output seemed to wane.
In the end, all judges had it for the local fighter with scores of 96-94, 97-93 and 98-92.
To recall, Oguni had early fought Johnreil Casimero back in 2023. That fight resulted in a controversial technical draw on account of an accidental headbutt.
Oguni came to the fight with a record of 24-4 with all four losses via the abbreviated route. Ergo, I thought Tapales had the right strategy by being aggressive. Unfortunately, the cut slowed him down a bit and he seemed winded in the final half of the fight.
Afterwards in his social media post, Tapales thanked his supporters and fans and conceded that he had a hard time making weight for the superbantamweight division and would go up to featherweight.
In the weigh-in prior to this fight, Tapales was only 0.06 pounds above the limit on his first try which is negligible. But apparently, this bothered him a bit and the struggle to make weight affected him during the fight.
To recall, Tapales held the WBO bantamweight diadem from 2016 to 2017 and the WBA and IBF titles in the superbantamweight division in 2023.
A natural progression for a fighter as he gets older is to move up in weight. Tapales (45-4, 22KOs) is now 34 and time is certainly not on the side of “The Nightmare” as prior to the loss he had been rated top 5 on all major sanctioning bodies.
Don’t worry champ, the Pinoy fans support you all the way. You gave it your all and that’s what matters.
LAST ROUND. It’s on a dear friend, Nini Gonzales of East West Bank who recently celebrated her birthday. Cheers!