He’s No Lone Ranger! Stieglitz Stops Masked Man Yuzo Kiyota, Retains WBO Title
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
Desden, Germany (July 14, 2013)– In the old days, Clayton Moore was The Lone Ranger. More recently, Johnny Depp played The Lone Ranger. On July 13, 2013, at Enegeie-Verbund Arena, Desden, Germany, World Boxing Organization World Super Middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz had his hands full with the latest incarnation of ‘the masked man’ in number world ranked challenger Yuzo Kiyota of Tokyo, Japan. True, Kiyota did not win a round. Even still, it was the probably the most significant attempt to date by a Japanese fighter to win a world title in the upper weight classes, where Japanese fighters are usually extinct.
Kiyota, age 29, now 23-4-1, 21 knockouts, stopped Kenji Shamada in his November 2002 professional debut and won his first ten professional bouts. Kiyota won the Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation Super Middleweight title with a seventh round stoppage of Shintaro Matsumoto in March 2012, and defended the OPBF title in October 2012 with a sixth round stoppage of 9-0 Hiromitsu Miura. It was the first time in 28 bouts Kiyota had fought outside of Japan, and for all accounts, gave a decent accounting of himself.
Stieglitz stopped Kiyota 15 seconds into in the tenth round by technical decision due to an earlier accidental clash of heads which caused a cut over Kiyota’s left eye in the eighth round. Stieglitz had pretty much been pitching a technical shutout from round three to that point, with jabs and power punches by volume landing and not leaving Kitota much room for countering. Kiyota landed some decent punches in the first two rounds, but a Stieglitz left right combination opened a cut over Kiyota’s right eye in the third round. Stieglitz nearly finished Kiyota off along the ropes near the end of the fourth round, but Kiyota proved a cagey survivor.
Kiyota fought back well in the fifth round, but lost a point for having his head too low after being warned. Kiyota was also warned for elbowing in the seventh round. Stieglitz, age 32, now 45-3, 24 knockouts, appears ready and headed for a confrontation with Carl Froch, Andre Ward or Mikkel Kessler in a higher level title bout later in Fall 2013. As for Kiyota, the scores for Stieglitz of 99-90, 99-90 and 99-89 may have been a bit too extreme favoring the German native. Kiyota perhaps could have won a round or two, maybe three rounds, as the first two rounds were close, and the sixth round did not show much one way or the other. Kiyota’s effort is significant as Japanese fighters in the higher weight classes are extremely rare. I applaud the Germans and the WBO for giving the Japanese fighter a neutral and fair shot at the world title. Kiyota was brave and had the heart, and he is Japan’s best at 168 pounds, but did not have the talent to win against a world champion.
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