By Takahiro Onaga

It's fair to say that nobody really likes the concept of an “Interim” title, they are for all intents an impostor champion whilst the real champion is unable to fight for one reason or another and in reality the bouts for interim titles are just glorified eliminator bouts.

Saying that however some of the best recent bouts in Japanese rings have been for interim titles, with the December 24th “Interim” Middleweight title clash between Tomohiro Ebisu and Makoto Fuchigami being an early Christmas present last year. On Tuesday we got another thrilling interim title bout as Masayuki Kuroda (25-7-3, 17) and Yuta Matsuo (12-3-1, 6) traded blows in a bout for the “Interim” Japanese Flyweight title.

The Japanese Flyweight champion, Takuya Kogawa, is currently out of action following an injury to his ear, suffered last year when he took on Yudai Arai. He was supposed to defend against Matsuo, if he was fit, as part of the 2017 Champion Carnival bouts, which sees Japanese champions defending their titles against their mandatory challengers. With the injury not healing as quickly as hoped the JBC ordered Kuroda, who had been beaten at last year's Champion Carnival by Kogawa, to be the opponent for Matsuo.

If I'm being honest I was expecting a solid, but unspectacular bout between the two men, but instead we got something special, something deserving of the “title fight” billing.

In the opening moments it seemed like the more proven Kuroda was going to be the boss. He showed his class instantly and looked a class above Matsuo. It wasn't long before Matsuo started to respond and by the end of the first round it looked like we were in for something special, with both men landing solid shots, almost taking it in turns to land heavy leather.

The talent of Kuroda showed at times, with the former world title challenger looking the classier, but Matsuo's refusal to roll over saw him remain competitive at the mid way point, with the open scoring having the bout scored 48-48, 49-46, and 48-47 after 5 rounds.

Unfortunately for Matsuo the second half of the fight saw Kuroda extend his lead, winning round 6 on all 3 cards before the two men traded rounds in a thrilling back and forth war that really peaked in the final round, with both men letting their hands go freely through the final 3 minutes in what will be one of the best rounds rounds Japanese fans will see this year. The round helped cement a well deserve win for Kuroda, with scored of 96-94, 97-93 and 97-94.

Notably there were very few rounds that all 3 judges agreed on. Rounds 4, 6 and 10 were the only ones scored unanimously, and all wew scored in favour of Kuroda. Whilst that can sometimes be a bit “suspect” it was one of those fights where very few rounds were decisive but the general feeling was that Kuroda did deserve the win, and will now get a rematch with Kogawa later in the year.