At A Glance
- Tapales bore the weight of the Good Friday as he suffered an upset unanimous decision loss at the hands of Oguni at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan on April 3.
As the final bell rang at the end of the 10th round, Marlon Tapales immediately dropped his head in regret while Yukinori Oguni wore a wide smile as he raised his two hands in the air.
Tapales bore the weight of Good Friday as he suffered an upset unanimous decision loss at the hands of Oguni at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan on April 3.
The former unified champion succumbed to the body shots from the Japanese who significantly hurt and slowed him down beginning the middle rounds.
The judges scored the bout 96-94, 97-93, and 98-92 all in favor of Oguni who came into the contest as the heavy underdog.
The Filipino actually came out sharp in the opening rounds and dictated the pace with a couple of good hits. The tables turned however in the middle rounds, when Oguni began unloading a thudding body shot that obviously took some gas out of Tapales.
In the seventh round, another vicious shot almost put the Filipino on his knees. The 34-year-old did recover from it but he was never the same as Oguni’s slick jabs and sharp straights began landing on Tapales.
With the win, the 37-year-old Oguni successfully injected life to his flickering hopes for another title shot as he improved to a 24-4-3 record.
Tapales, on the other hand, dropped to a 41-5 slate. He is also expected to slide down in the rankings where, prior to the fight, he’s rated in the Top 3 in three of the four sanctioning bodies.