Lee retains WBA title

Lee retains WBA title

SEOUL (Reuter): South Korea's Lee Hyung-chul knocked out Japan's Tamura Tomonori in the final seconds of a 12-round bout to retain his World Boxing Association (WBA) junior bantamweight boxing title yesterday.

The 25-year-old Lee led the fight, in the southern city of Pusan, from the first round with a flurry of rights and lefts to the forehead and torso of Tomonori, 10th in the WBA rankings.

An exhausted Tomonori, whose right eye almost closed with constant punishment, could not ward off a final assault from the South Korean in the 12th round. It was Lee's first defense of the title since he won it from Japan's Katsuya Onizuka last September.