Hinata Maruta returned to a Japanese ring on Sunday

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Last year we saw Hinata Maruta (7-1, 6) [丸田 陽七太] suffer his first defeat, losing a clear but competitive decision to OPBF Super Bantamweight champion Hidenori Otake [大竹 秀典]. In that loss some accused Murata of just being a bit too inactive and too patient, not picking up the pace often enough.

 

Today he fought in Japan for the first time since that loss, and he looked like he had taken those comments to heart as he showed a more aggressive mentality and destroyed Indonesian visitor Arega Yunian (6-10, 1).

 

Murata attacked from the opening stages and cut Yunian on the right eye inside the opening round. The following round he dropped the visitor with a body shot before dropping him for the 10 count in round 3.

 

The changes in mentality appear to be a direct result of his loss to Otake. There's no saying these changes would have him defeat Otake if they had a rematch, but it's great to see the youngster being so aware of his flaws and working on them. He has all the tools to go to the top, but needs to just work on litte things, with his aggressiveness being one of them. Some had questioned whether he had the extra gear to go into and on today's performance we dare say there is a few more gears we've yet to see from Murata, who turned 21 just a few days ago.

 

On the same card former world title challenger Warlito Parrenas (26-7-1, 23) was in action, though it was only really a cameo as he took on a very over-matched Thai foe at the City Gym, Kawanishi.

 

Parrenas, fighting in the chief support bout, needed just 135 seconds to pick up the win,though it could have been shorter had the referee felt like a sense of mercy on the visitor.

 

The Thai was down from left hook after just a minute of the bout. He got back but was quickly dropped for a second time. The Thai's fighting mentality saw him rise off the canvas again, but his lack of skills were the issue and he was dropped a third time, from a hard right hand, with the bout being stopped.

 

Whilst the contest was always supposed to be a stay busy fight for Parrenas, who was who was fighting for just the second time since his December 2015 loss to Naoya Inoue, it didn't really keep him busy. It was more of a cameo than a stay busy fight, and the 34 year old will have had much harder sessions in his role as a trainer at the Morioka gym.

 

Saying that however he looked at his destructive best and hopefully this result will lead to bigger and better bouts in the near future, as Parrenas does have the potential to be a nightmare for those just on the fringes of world class and it'd be great to see him in that level of fight once again.

 

If you're interested in watching this show it's available on Boxingraise!