Masayuki Itō vs. Evgeny Alexandrovich Chuprakov & Kenshiro Teraji vs. Saúl Juárez Gil RBR

Round 8

Inoue keeps pushing into Salapat with his left glove, arm extended, bracing off him and propelling himself in reverse. Salapat is crowding him, smothering him against the ropes when he can, hacking sidelong into the rib cage. Plurality of light jabs by Inoue on the backfoot, nothing slowing his oppressor down. Salapat happy to eat a few lightly tossed 1-2s in order to get inside and work the body, and has learned to roll around some of the punches, timing Inoue's rhythm.

10-9 Salapat

77-75 Inoue

 

WBC open scoring after eight:

77-75
78-74
79-73

all for Inoue

 

Round 9

The first ninety seconds or so follows the pattern of the preceding few sessions but things quickly turn around when Inoue bends his knees and springs directly into Salapat with a flush counter 1-2 on the face, which stuns him. Inoue doesn't let up from there until the final bell, managing to be first and last in the fast & furious exchanges, having found his "groove" again, lighting Salapat up with straight head shots and ignoring his now disjointed body slaps.

10-9 Inoue, massive and much-needed comeback round after losing three on the spin

87-84 Inoue

 

Round 10

Inoue has the counter 1-2 dialed in, even as Salapat bears down on him with heightened desperate intensity. Salapat has turned orthodox and tosses a lead right into the cheek of Inoue as he's drifting to his left and swatting out with a fat left hook to provide himself cover, but Inoue thinks on his feet and counters this counter with a 1-2-3, landing doubly on the face and then dropping the hook on the liver as he turns Salapat. Good two-way action thus sustained throughout.

10-9 Inoue, close

97-93 Inoue

 

I see ESPN+ is about 1.5 minutes behind Fuji...

 

Round 11

Inoue is bouncing around, showboating a little, jumping in with lead right hands on the face of Salapat, who is like a malfunctioning robot in an old black-and-white sci-fi movie now, alternating between modes, switching his stance every few steps and trying first a fluttering jab up top and then lead rear hands to gain entry, then dropping in some coal-stoking body combos, but for all the frenetic pace he isn't landing anything cleanly. Inoue too sharp, too savvy, and too agile with his jumping around.

10-9 Inoue

107-102 Inoue

 

Round 12

Inoue is making Salapat lunge and miss with his right jab, dusting his face with flurries. Salapat is trying his damnedest to charge in and force a firefight to make something happen, but Inoue has enough reserves of energy to keep sliding backwards and popping off flurries to stem his tide. Salapat turns orthodox for the umpteenth time and Teddy Atlas finally notices & remarks upon it as though it were some astonishing, novel turn of events. Idiot. Anyway, nice careful boxing down the stretch by Inoue.

10-9 Inoue

117-111 Inoue