Pedro Taduran Claims IBF Title From Ginjiro Shigeoka by Stoppage
At the Shiga Daihatsu Arena in Otsu, Japan, Filipino Pedro Taduran (17-4-1, 13 KOs) upset home area hero Ginjiro Shigeoka (11-1, 9 KOs) to claim the IBF minimumweight title.
Shigeoka got off to a decent start as he tried to use his faster hands to box from the outside. But by round four, he began to develop some swelling over his right eye.
Throughout the contest, Taduran was in attack mode and focused on Shigeoka’s body. By the midway point of the fight, his work and commitment started to take its toll. Sensing that he had Shigeoka in distress, Taduran turned up the heat, and the Japanese fighter had no answers.
TURNING UP THE HEAT
The Filipino southpaw continued to pound Shigeoka with a withering body assault. The former champion is a fighter with a reputation as an explosive puncher. But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t put a dent into Taduran, who ate up the shots and kept plowing forward like a Sherman tank. By the end of the eighth round, Shigeoka’s eye was swollen shut and looked like he had no more fighting spirit.
Sensing this, Taduran went for the gusto in the ninth. In the opening minute of the round, Shigeoka went down from what seemed to be sheer exhaustion. He got up, and Taduran poured on the punches until referee Steve Will had no choice but to stop the action with ten seconds to go in the round.
A significant underdog heading into the contest, Taduran scored a shocking upset to now become a two-time IBF champion at 105. Faced with adversity for the first time in his career, Shigeoka folded like a cheap tent. It is a crushing defeat for a fighter once regarded as a rising star in the lower-weight divisions.
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