Shoki Sakai’s boxing career has followed a unique path.
The 26-year-old native of Japan has lived in Mexico City the last eight years or so and honed his boxing skills under the guidance of Boxing Hall of Fame trainer Ignacio Beristain.
Now with a 22-7-1 record, including 13 knockouts, all of the Japanese fighter’s pro bouts have taken place in Mexico except for three fights in Pharr within the past year.
Sakai was back in Pharr on Saturday to fight in the main event of the “Noche de Campeones II” boxing show presented by Silver Promotions at Boggus Ford Event Center.
It was a triumphant return as Sakai prevailed against Weslaco’s Jose “J.P.” Prado on an eight-round majority decision. The judges’ scores were 76-75, 77-74, 76-76.
The super lightweight title bout against Prado (8-2-1, three KOs) was a rematch of the Sept. 24 fight between the two that ended in a fiercely contested draw, also at Boggus Ford Event Center.
This time it was another intense slugfest with each fighter landing some strong, effective punches. And again, each fighter displayed a lot of heart and provided the audience with a bout every bit as active and entertaining as the first encounter.
Sakai did just enough to win as one of his punches dropped Prado to a knee with barely less than 40 seconds left in the last round. Prado was up before the count of eight and continued fighting, but the knockdown appeared to give Sakai the edge he needed.
Sakai is quite fluent in Spanish but speaks little or no English. The crowd cheered wildly when he was handed a mic by the ring announcer at the end of the bout and in perfect Spanish thanked those in attendance for being there.
““Viva Tejas! Viva Mexico!,” Sakai said and went on to let the fans know how much he enjoyed fighting in Pharr and couldn’t wait until the next time.
Every one of the nine fights on the card was entertaining, including the six-round co-main event between flyweight female fighters Cristina “Mandy” Fuentes (8-8-5) of Laredo and Sonia Osorio (8-5-1) of Mexico City. Constantly pressing the attack, Funtes won via a split decision (59-55, 56-58, 58-56).
Also on the card, in a somewhat surprising outcome, McAllen super middleweight Benito Rios (4-1, four KOs) suffered his first defeat on a four-round split decision (38-37, 38-37, 36-39) against Corpus Christi’s Rudy Lozano (3-8-2).
Other winners on the card included Brownsville fighters Eleazar Hinojosa and Miguel Morales along with La Feria’s Richard Munoz, Pharr’s Marcos Oseguera, Reynosa’s Rafael Reyes and McAllen’s Red Garcia.
UPDATE
The Extreme Fight Night 3 boxing and mixed martial arts show at Pharr’s Golazo Soccer facility, also Saturday, was a well-attended event as well. The show was presented by Texas Rage and South Texas Fighting Academy.
The four-round main event was won on a unanimous decision by Mexico City heavyweight Hugo “El Toro” Trujillo (4-0-1, two KOs) against fellow Mexican boxer Daniel “El Tyson” Mejia Hernandez.
Trujillo gained attention on Feb. 25 when he knocked out previously unbeaten Harlingen cruiserweight/heavyweight Raphael Murphy in the main event of Extreme Fight Night 2, also at the Golazo facility.
MMA fights Saturday were won by Enrique Cardona at 145 pounds and Jeffrey Oelerich at 130 pounds with both matches decided on submissions.
UPCOMING
Weslaco super bantamweight Brandon Lee Figueroa (11-0, nine KOs) is scheduled to fight May 2 in Los Angeles, California, in the co-main event of a boxing card to be broadcast on Fox Sports 1.
The STFC 42 mixed martial arts cage fighting show is scheduled May 19 at McAllen Convention Center. For more information, call (956) 414-8698 or (956) 562-2622.
Harlingen cruiserweight/heavyweight Raphael Murphy (11-1, nine KOs) is scheduled to fight May 27 at the Hammond Civic Center in Hammond, Indiana.
