Takuma Inoue recovered from a seventh-round knockdown to retain his WBC bantamweight title with a unanimous decision over Tenshin Nasukawa in Tokyo on Sunday.
Two judges scored the rematch 116–111 for Inoue, while the third returned a 114–113 card at Toyota Arena Tokyo. The result gave Inoue a second victory over Nasukawa in 10 months.
Inoue improved his professional record to 23–2, with five knockouts. Nasukawa, the former kickboxing champion, fell to 8–2 in his boxing career, with both defeats coming against the same opponent.
The champion worked behind his right hand during the opening half of the fight. Nasukawa’s southpaw left produced the major change in the seventh, dropping Inoue and giving the challenger a chance to press for a stoppage.
Inoue remained on his feet through the rest of the round as Nasukawa pursued him toward the ropes. He returned to his offense in the eighth and continued landing right hands during exchanges at closer range.
The disclosed scorecards after eight rounds showed Inoue leading 77–74 on all three cards. Nasukawa needed to overturn that advantage over the closing four rounds after the knockdown had reduced the champion’s earlier lead.
The final scores showed different assessments of those later rounds. Two officials gave Inoue a five-point winning margin, while the other separated the boxers by a single point. All three nevertheless awarded the decision to the defending champion.
Inoue first beat Nasukawa on November 24, 2025, to win the vacant WBC belt. Sunday’s rematch was his second defense of the title in 2026, following a victory against Kazuto Ioka in May.
His older brother, Naoya Inoue, was in his corner for the rematch. Takuma’s result kept the WBC championship at bantamweight, a separate division from Naoya’s undisputed super bantamweight titles.
The same Tokyo card included Sam Goodman’s unanimous-decision victory over Ryosuke Nishida for the interim IBF super bantamweight title. Ricardo Malajika also won a split decision over Tomoya Tsuboi for the vacant WBC super flyweight championship.
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