Japan’s Koki Kameda has won his first championship title in a close match with Venezualan fighter Juan Landaeta. If you know the news or are at least living in Japan this has been one of the most heavily anticipated of the year. Here its hard to go a day without some kind of notice about the “Kameda san kyodai” (three brothers Kameda). All three have been trained by thier father from early ages to become championship fighters. Koki, who is 19, is the first of the three to prove their father’s training style. A style, which some have ostensibly been too quick to criticize as less than professional and lacking technique.
The first round began with a tight and conservative match as neither fighter seemed to want to make errors early. The round ended with Kameda being knocked down with a clean hook, but recovering quickly to resume the last few seconds of the round. This seemed to set the tone over the next few rounds, as the usually exuberant Kameda fought fairly conservative. He had much success using right straights and 1-2 hook combinations, but Landaeta’s experience was clearly evident as he did not let this phase him, even in the later rounds. By the sixth round, Kameda seemed to have given up on the idea of getting the K.O. he must have grown accustomed to getting (he has had 11 fights 10 of them by K.O.).
Even though he had been previously knocked down, he fought to make up the gap in points by sharp and tight combinations and maintaining pressure on Landaeta. All the way, though, Landaeta was stalking, looking for openings and winning some, bloodying Kameda’s lip and swelling his eyes with clean straights. By the eighth Kameda was looking tired, but game as Landaeta was trying to wear him down by forcing him to make openings and giving him no room to work his strong punches. In the ninth, Landaeda opened a cut over Kameda’s right eye, which, even though (by my count) he seemed up on points seemed to rush him and put the heat on. In the last minute of the 11th round, kameda got caught in a nice string of strong punches, which visibly shook him and kept him trying to wrap Landaeda up to wait out the rest of the round. From this point, it looked like the lead he’d built up in the earlier rounds might not last and he might run out of gas or even get knocked out.
The last round was characterized by lots of holding with both fighters making good combinations. Landaeda was more the aggressor during these last two rounds, using his long jabs and straights to stop Kameda’s advances and to further irritate his cut eye. It was an exciting finish, because the decision was close with two judges in favor of Kameda by 1 point each. This was a close match to say the least, but it was exciting, because it was the first time that Kameda was really challenged in his fighting abilities.
I might have written up his earlier matches (that he won for the most part by KO), but for the most part the fighters did not seem to be on his level. Some perhaps being ‘journeyman’ fighters set up to pad his record. However, Landaeda was not in the above category and showed it many times over during the fight, taking good combinations and returing them with earnest. Landaeda’s experience really showed in the later rounds as his demeanor showed no worry and confidence in his skills. Kameda’s face was a story book of pain at times, as you could tell that he was not used to long fights. But this is what I’ve wanted to see since they began hyping his fights. I wanted to see him challenged by someone who could take and give a good punch. I have to say that in those 12 rounds, I think he earned that belt, but I’m more interested now in seeing his next fight when he has to defend his title.
Dave~