HIGHLAND Boxing Gym’s Carlo Magali scored another impressive victory to retain the OPBF super featherweight champion after stopping his Chinese foe Saturday evening.
The 31–year–old native of Talibon, Bohol who now calls La Trinidad, Benguet his second home battered Masatoshi Kotani enroute to a 10th round stoppage with 50 seconds remaining in their bout scheduled for 12 rounds in Tokyo, Japan.
Magali used his sturdy physique to thwart Kotani’s attack who is known as a hard puncher and was unbeaten since 2013.
His winning streak came to an end Saturday evening with Magali dominating the middle rounds dropping Kotani twice with a left hook and left right combination.
Having seen too much damage, the referee immediately stopped the bout in favor of the Filipino pug.
With the win, Magali improved to 23 wins, including 12 knock outs, nine losses and three draws.
Magali has also won three of his last five bouts after back to back loses in 2016 against Pavel Makilov for the WBC Asian Boxing Council silver lightweight title and Emmanuel Tagoe for the WBA international lightweight title.
Kotani meanwhile suffered his third career defeat after winning 12 straight since 2013. His last defeat came in the hands of Cirilo Espino in 2012. (Roderick Osis)