Mar. 1, 1964 - The world featherweight champion, Sugar Ramos, retained his title tonight in Tokyo with a sixth-round technical knockout over the Japanese challenger, Mitsunori Seki.
The end came at 1:38 of the sixth round of the scheduled 15-rounder after Ramos had twice knocked down Seki. Seki’s American adviser, Teddy Bentham, shouted to the referee, Nick Pope, to stop the fight.
About 8,000 spectators watched Ramos stalk Seki for five rounds and then floor him twice in the sixth. Ramos chased the back-pedaling Seki for most of the early rounds before he opened a cut over the lanky Japanese boxer’s left eye in the fifth.
The champion, a Cuban who lives in exile in Mexico, started out fast in the sixth and floored Seki for a mandatory 8-count with a hard right to the jaw. Seki appeared glassy-eyed as he stood up, but he shuffled toward Ramos — only to encounter a barrage of lefts and rights.
Knocked down for another 8-count, Seki got up, but Bentham ordered the referee to stop the fight. Iwao Wakamatsu, the 22-year-old Japanese challenger’s manager, said he was thinking of the fight in which former champion Davey Moore was fatally injured when he ordered a stop to the bout.
“I stopped the fight to save Seki from further injuries,” said Wakamatsu. “I didn’t want to see another Moore incident.”
Wakamatsu was referring to the bout on March 21 of last year in which Ramos dethroned Moore in Los Angeles and dealt him injuries that subsequently caused Moore’s death.
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