Photo by Naoki Fukuda

Anselmo Moreno gave Shinsuke Yamanaka all he could handle in their WBC bantamweight title fight on Sept. 22.

Ultimately, the Japanese champion won a split decision; David Sutherland and Mauro Di Fiore‘s 115-113 scores for Yamanaka out-voted Oren Shellenberger, who scored it 115-113 for Moreno.

The fight was extremely close with opinion varying on who deserved the win. Supervisor Frank Quill described the bout as “enthralling.”

Moreno, 30, a former long-reigning WBA 118-pound champion, is keen to look forward rather than looking back on the contest.

“Not much to be said,” Moreno told RingTV.com through De Moreno. “Everybody who watched the fight can see what happened so now it is part of my past. I just want to concentrate in the future.”

At last week‘s WBC convention one of the topics of conversation was who would become Yamanaka’s mandatory challenger. Moreno’s wife and manager Rouss De Moreno made the long trip to Kunming, China – 32 hours from Panama – to ask for Moreno to be named in the hope of getting a rematch with Yamanaka.

Yamanaka is thinking of vacating his throne and moving up in weight while he decides his next move and it was decided that Moreno would face Thailand’s Suriyan Sor Rungvisai for the WBC Silver title. However, if Yamanaka vacates, the fight will be upgraded for the vacant WBC belt.

“I’m happy to hear the decision and more happy to know my wife, Rouss, was representing me very hard and gets good results for me,” he said.

De Moreno is pleased with the ruling.

“Very happy,” she said, laughing. “With the result (I) just want to (say) thanks to Mr. Mauricio Sulaiman for making the right decision on the Anselmo Moreno situation.”

The WBC will send a letter to both parties this week and they have 30 days to negotiate the fight. The successful party will have 120 days to promote the bout. If they can’t work out a deal the fight will go to purse bids.

“I’m going to do everything possible together with my sponsors to bring this good show to Panama,” De Moreno said.

Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at [email protected] and you can follow him at www.twitter.com/AnsonWainwright