On the 16^th at Korakuen Hall, J-NETWORK held an event which featured a Welterweight title fight as well as a Super Bantamweight title unification fight.

In the night’s main event, undefeated Masato Otake improved to 9-0, capturing the J-Network Welterweight title from former champion Atsushi Sasatani by unanimous decision on scores of 50-47(x3). Sasatani won the title against Tomo Kiire in October of last year and this was his first defense. Otake earned the right to fight for the title by defeating former K-1 Koshien fighter Kohei Nishikawa in August. Otake should be an interesting fighter to watch going forward as he has faced little resistance on his path to the title. I would liken him, as a prospect, to Takafumi Morita as he captured a major promotional title within 11 fights and they have a common opponent in Nishikawa. However, Morita took a big step up in his following three fights as well as knocking out Nishikawa in the first round while Otake took him to a decision. Otake has a few options going forward as he could defend his title against #1 ranked Tomo Kiire or he could set his sights on the WPMF or WBC Japan titles.

In a Super Bantamweight title unification bout, reigning champion Hiroaki Mizuhara defeated interim champ Hidemaru by split decision on scores of 49-47, 48-50 and 50-48. Mizuhara was a part of the Krush 55kg tournament and made it to the semifinals, losing to Ryuya Kusakabe by decision and this win is his first successful defense. Hidemaru won the interim title back in June by unanimous decision. Next could be a rematch between the two, but with a relatively strong weight class, Mizuhara could find himself fighting WPMF Japan Bantamweight champ Ichinohe Sota while a good matchup for Hidemaru would be against Takayuki Umehara in a fight that would have J-Network and WPMF Japan implications.

Finally, in a matchup of Krush regulars, Junpei Aotsu defeated DYNAMITE Yuta by unanimous extension round decision on scores of 10-9(x3) after a majority draw with scores of 29-28 and 29-29(x2). In the past 2 and a half years, Aotsu has fought 17 times, going 9-8-1 against a who’s who of Japanese Lightweights the likes of Masahiro Yamamoto, Fire Harada, Yuta Kubo, Masaaki Noiri, TaCa, Arita Tsukahara and TURBΦ. Aotsu is currently on a 2-fight win streak. DYNAMITE Yuta scored a big upset in the quarterfinals of the Krush 63kg tournament with a first round knockout of former K-1 63kg posterboy Daisuke Uematsu, but lost to Koya Urabe in the semifinals.