Ruben Olivares vs Kazuyoshi Kanazawa 2

A challenger beaten inside two rounds in their first meeting came close to overturning the world bantamweight champion before suffering three knockdowns in the fourteenth. Kazuyoshi Kanazawa’s return contest with Ruben Olivares at the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium in Nagoya on 25 October 1971 bore little resemblance to their earlier encounter. Olivares retained his WBA and WBC championships at two minutes of the penultimate round, but only after surviving serious trouble in a demanding defence.

Olivares had stopped Kanazawa in Mexico in January 1969, before taking the world championship from Lionel Rose later that year. His subsequent rivalry with Chucho Castillo had brought his first defeat and the loss of his titles, followed by their recovery in April 1971. Nagoya marked the first defence of his second reign. Kanazawa, meanwhile, had developed into a more accomplished contender and won the Oriental and Pacific bantamweight championship in July. The earlier defeat made him an unlikely challenger on paper, but he entered the rematch considerably better equipped to resist the Mexican’s attack.

The first round was cautious. Kanazawa sought to maintain distance rather than exchange freely with the heavier puncher, while Olivares advanced without forcing the pace. Activity increased in the second as the champion began pressing more firmly and Kanazawa answered with carefully selected punches. By the third, the challenger’s countering was producing results. He was absorbing Olivares’s blows more successfully than in their first meeting and finding openings as the Mexican attacked. Olivares renewed his pressure in the fourth, although Kanazawa continued to counter. The champion went to the canvas during that round, but the fall was ruled a slip. In the fifth, Kanazawa began making him yield ground.

The contest remained competitive through the middle rounds. Olivares’s strength and sustained pressure did not prevent Kanazawa from mounting dangerous replies, and in the eighth the challenger hurt him badly enough to threaten a knockdown. The champion stayed upright and continued fighting. As the rounds accumulated, both men tired, their movement slowed, and the exchanges became less controlled. Olivares also sustained damage around his left eye, an injury that subsequently required corrective surgery. The defence had become a test of endurance as well as punching ability, with neither man able to secure a comfortable advantage.

The thirteenth produced the sharpest changes of fortune. Olivares attacked with hooks to the body and head, forcing Kanazawa to withstand a severe assault. The challenger then launched a desperate counterattack, catching the champion with right hooks and left uppercuts as Olivares’s own work began to slow. For a time, the title appeared within Kanazawa’s reach. Yet he could not land the decisive blow. His attacks became increasingly unbalanced, and the effort of pursuing the finish left him struggling to maintain his footing. Olivares survived the round; Kanazawa had spent heavily in trying to stop him.

Olivares recovered sufficiently to resume his attack in the fourteenth. Kanazawa went down three times, and on the final fall referee Jay Edson waved the contest over without beginning another count. The official result was a knockout at 2:00. The scorecards underline how little separated them before the finish: Edson had Olivares ahead 62–60, J. J. Escalera favoured him 63–61, and Shigeru Fujii scored the contest level at 64–64. Both fighters finished exhausted. Olivares had retained his championships through his ability to recover and renew his attack; Kanazawa had transformed an apparently unpromising rematch into a close and punishing championship contest.

This fight tells you more about Olivares than another quick knockout ever could. He’d stopped Kanazawa in two rounds before becoming champion, then came through his hard series with Chucho Castillo. This time, the Japanese challenger made him earn every bit of it, hurting him in the eighth and thirteenth.

Kanazawa deserves respect. In the thirteenth, he answered Olivares’s heavy attack with right hooks and left uppercuts, but his balance deteriorated as he chased the finish. For me, that’s where exhaustion starts undoing good work: you can still land, but you struggle to get back into position for the next punch.

Olivares survived and dropped him three times in the fourteenth: a deserved stoppage, but no comfortable title defence. I rate the recovery as highly as the punching. Kanazawa exposed his vulnerability; Olivares showed he could still find the strength to finish a fight going badly wrong.