Only seven hours apart in time, but thousands of miles apart from each other, Kazuto Ioka and Juan Carlos Reveco set up their already scheduled Dec. 31 rematch by winning their respective bouts in their respective home countries.

Reveco (36-2, 19 knockouts), a former two-division titlist, did his part by clearly outpointing Venezuela’s Breilor Teran (14-13-1, 7 KOs) who had to survive a few rocky moments en route to a pedestrian 10-round unanimous decision in the southern city of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, on Saturday night.

Reveco scored comfortably from all angles against an opponent who was barely able to stay in the fight with occasional outbursts. But even in spite of the visitor’s uninspired effort, Reveco failed to take advantage of Teran’s shortcomings by not pulling the trigger in the few occasions in which he had him hurt, contenting himself with a workmanlike performance that was more than enough to earn him the win he needed to ensure the already scheduled rematch with Ioka, which is planned to happen on “middle or late December,” according to Reveco.

There were no knockdowns in the fight, and the scores favored Reveco by 100-90 (twice) and 99-91.

In Osaka, Ioka (18-1, 10 knockouts) made a successful first defense of the “regular” WBA flyweight belt that he lifted from Reveco back in December of 2014 in a hotly disputed bout with a controversial decision. This time he faced an equally tough but much lesser talented Argentine fighter in Roberto Domingo Sosa (26-3-1, 14 knockouts), scoring a shutout over 12 rounds by scores of 120-108 and 119-109 (twice).

Reveco: “I would attack him a little bit more in the rematch”

The tune-up bout was always considered a mere formality by Reveco and his team, who have now set their sights on the rematch of a fight they still believe they lost by a close but fair majority decision.

“The first one was a close fight, and even though the difference was very small between us I don’t believe it was a blatant robbery. It was an appreciation fight,” said Reveco after beating Teran.

Reveco’s long absence from the ring showed in his lackluster effort, but the fighter refuses to acknowledge this performance as any indication of his current or future condition.

“I felt a little bit off in my distances, but in the end I believe I did a good job,” said Reveco, who indicated that the rematch against Ioka would be an entirely different affair.

“I believe I would go out and attack him a little bit more in the rematch. I believe I would want to press the action a little bit more. I felt I had a lot of pauses in the first fight and now I will have to fight from bell to bell and close the ring on him,” said Reveco. “I will have to work a little bit more on my physical strength and work harder on my sparring sessions.”

Diego Morilla, a bilingual boxing writer since 1995, is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He served as boxing writer for ESPNdeportes.com and ESPN.com, and is now a regular contributor to RingTV.com and HBO.com, as well as the resident boxing writer for XNSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @MorillaBoxing