Boxing: Skye Nicolson keeps her WBC super bantamweight belt in Texas
· BehindLines newsroom
Australia's Skye Nicolson retained her WBC super bantamweight world title (122 pounds) by beating Japan's Miyo Yoshida on a unanimous decision on Sunday 8 November 2026 in Arlington, Texas. According to the World Boxing Council's website, all three judges had her winning, with scorecards of 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92 after ten rounds. Boxing News 24 adds that the fight took place at the College Park Center, on an ESPN-televised evening whose main event was Elif Turhan against Alycia Baumgardner, and that neither boxer was knocked down.
A fight controlled from range
The WBC report describes Nicolson boxing southpaw, managing the distance, choosing her openings and landing accurately while slipping out of Yoshida's counters. Yoshida kept pressing forward and kept working until the final bell. Boxing News 24 gives the shape of the fight: Yoshida landed rights early, Nicolson replied with her left and to the body, and later used a reach advantage of about five inches, according to that site, even though the two were less than a pound apart at the weigh-in. Yoshida had her best spell in the fourth round, but Nicolson tied her up. In the later rounds Yoshida scored mostly in close, while Nicolson picked up points whenever she found space, working uppercuts into her combinations at the end.
The title context
It was Nicolson's first defense as a full champion at 122 pounds; she had been elevated from interim to full titleholder in May. Boxing News 24 notes that she is a former WBC featherweight champion, that the fight was her debut on the MVP banner, and that it was first planned for Britain in August, then postponed because of an injury. Yoshida, for her part, was chasing a world belt in a third division, having previously held titles at 115 and 118 pounds.
What comes next
Boxing News 24 mentions the prospect of a unification fight but names no opponent and gives no date.