Joshua Franco may or may not have left his best chance to win in the gym, as evidenced by his inability to come in within even a weight class of defending his WBA belt at 115 pounds. He moved his hands like a man in pretty good shape.

Kazuto Ioka beat the man in front of him, and did it with distance. 

Franco again brought the offense, outthrowing Ioka by nearly 500 punches to the tune of over 1300 blows according to CompuBox. Ioka threw just shy of 900 punches, but outlanded Franco in almost every round. Timing, precision, balance…they are what has made Ioka one of boxing’s most consistent little men for more than a decade.

It was all on display on Saturday in Japan. 

Scores were still close enough for Franco to have been in range of victory after ten and that’s where Ioka cemented his latest title win. In the twelfth and final round, Ioka was credited with a rare frame where he actually threw more than Franco. It was an excellent performance from a 34-year old who won his first major title in 2011 at strawweight.

Ioka missed the biggest names around his weights, never working into the rotation with Roman Gonzalez, Juan Francisco Estrada, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, or even Carlos Cuadras. He’s been almost a parallel universe in this era, carving his own legacy that has grown over the years as he managed wins over McWilliams Arroyo, Donnie Nietes, Kosei Tanaka, and now Franco instead.

It’s at a point where that parallel universe is likely to align with Gonzalez and Estrada at the same final destination.

Futures: Ioka, with titles in four weight classes, partial unification at strawweight, and now a dozen wins over fighters ranked top ten in their class across those four weight classes, has made a hell of a case for Canastota. He’s one of the most accomplished fighters of the last decade and change.

There is still time to ice his credentials. Estrada remains the lineal king at Jr. bantamweight and an Ioka-Estrada fight remains appealing. So would a showdown with his fellow four-division titlist Gonzalez. All of them are in their thirties and likely make more against each other than tempting a young tiger like Junto Nakatani. 

The Jr. bantamweight golden era still has some gas in the tank.

Franco has announced his retirement and, if it sticks, he had an honest run in a very tough era. There’s no shame in that and he fought his heart out again last weekend.       

Cliff’s Notes…

The stoppage in Carlos Adames-Julian Williams wasn’t the worst of 2023, but it was wrong. Williams had shown the ability to weather storms before that in the fight and deserved the chance to make his own luck. Referees getting suckered by flurries that generally aren’t landing isn’t new and Williams waited too long to start punching back, but he was still fighting in there…Speaking of Jr. bantamweights above, Fernando Martinez overcame some early resistance and picked up another one on the Showtime undercard. He might not be quite what Nakatani looks like he could be, but Martinez is proving to be a very tough out in the class…Adam Kownacki gave fans one more wild slugfest. No one can ever say he didn’t provide money’s worth for entertainment.   

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com