Rex Tso remains unbeaten, stops Young Gil Bae in four
Rex Tso made his second-straight appearance in his native Hong Kong a brief one, stopping South Korean Young Gil Bae in four rounds at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center in the main event of a Top Rank-promoted card on Saturday.
The 28-year-old Tso (19-0, 12 knockouts), who is ranked 10th by the WBA and WBO and eighth by the IBF at 115 pounds, was fighting for the first time since last August, while Bae (27-6-1, 21 KOs) was last active in February. Bae had most famously fought WBC strawweight titleholder Wanheng Menayothin last November, missing weight by a pound and a half before being stopped in Round 9.
Tso, a pro since 2011, accelerated his career beginning in 2013, when Chinese territory Macau briefly became a boxing hotbed. The southpaw proved himself to be an exciting — and marketable — draw, with a large amount of fans making the ferry ride from Hong Kong to Macau to see him fight.
In the co-featured bout, 2012 Olympic middleweight gold medalist Ryota Murata (10-0, 7 KOs) of Japan likewise remained unbeaten with a fourth-round stoppage of Felipe Santos Pedroso (13-2, 11 KOs). Murata, 30, won’t be inactive for long as he’s set to face George Tahdooahnippa (34-2-3, 24 KOs) on the undercard of the junior welterweight title unification fight between Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol on July 23 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
In welterweight action, Filipino boxer Jay Solmiano (18-3-1, 14 KOs) scored a second-round knockout of Japanese fighter Jumbo Oda Nobunaga Shoten Petagine (9-4, 7 KOs).