Angelo Leo Retains His Featherweight Title Before a Hostile Crowd in Osaka

Angelo Leo scored one of the biggest upsets of 2024 when he unseated IBF world featherweight title-holder Luis Alberto “Venado” Lopez. And he did it with pizzazz, knocking poor Lopez into dreamland with a highlight reel left hook. Tonight, in the bustling Japanese port city of Osaka, Leo made his first title defense against Osaka native Tomoki Kameda and emerged victorious, retaining his title on a majority decision.

Albuquerque’s Leo, who improved to 26-1 (12), was in his second reign as a title-holder. When he won the WBO version of the bantamweight title in 2020, out-pointing Tramaine Williams, he became the fifth world champion from Albuquerque, following in the footsteps of Bob Foster, Johnny Tapia, Danny Romero, and Holly Holm. His tenure was brief. He lost the belt to Stephen Fulton in his first defense.

In those days, Leo, now 31 years old, was a Mayweather Promotions fighter. After breaking away from Mayweather, he missed all of 2022 and most of 2023, and when he returned he rejuvenated his career under the “ShoBox” umbrella.

Tomoki Kameda, who had 15 of his first 23 fights in Mexico – hence his curious nickname, “El Mexicanito” – was seeking to become a champion in a second weight class. From a prominent Japanese boxing family, he briefly held the WBO world bantamweight title, taking the belt from Namibia’s Paulus Ambunda in 2013 and successfully defending it three times before losing it to England’s Jamie McDonnell.

Leo worked well off his jab tonight and landed the cleaner punches. He likely won the final round, without which the match would have been scored a draw. The final tallies were 116-112, 15-113, and 114-114.

Before the fight, Kameda (42-5-1, 23 KOs) indicated that, win or lose, this was likely his final rodeo. After the fight, Angelo Leo spoke about his desire to fight “The Monster,” Naoya Inoue, who has teased the idea of moving up to featherweight.

Semi-wind-up

Filipino southpaw Pedro Taduran successfully defended his IBF minimumweight title with a split decision over Ginjiro Shigaoka. This was a rematch. In their first meeting last July, Taduran defeated the previously undefeated Shigaoka via a 9^th-round TKO.

Two of the judges favored the Filipino (118-110 and 115-113) with the dissenter scoring it 115-113 for the Japanese fighter. Taduran improved to 18-4-1 (13). Shigaoka (11-2) fainted after the match and was removed from the arena on a stretcher. At press time, his condition was listed as stable.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE