TOKYO American Willie Jorrin retained his World Boxing Council (WBC) super bantamweight title for the second time after a contentious draw with Japanese challenger Osamu Sato on Tuesday.

For Sato, the result came as a bitter disappointment after he had promised to make up for "seven years of hurt" by dedicating victory to a former high school classmate who died in the 1995 Kobe earthquake disaster.

Sato's misery was compounded by the fact that one of the three ringside judges, Noparat Sricharoen of Thailand, awarded him the fight 114-112 while the other two scored the bout even.

Under the rules of the WBC scoring system, the match was recorded as a draw on the basis of a majority.

Jorrin sent the third-ranked Sato to the canvas twice in the third round but the 32-year-old Californian failed to press home his advantage at Tokyo's Ariake Colosseum.

Sato hit back with some stinging combinations in the fourth and fifth rounds as Jorrin, who had trouble making the weight limit of 55.3 kilograms for his first fight in a year, began to slow visibly.

The superior fitness of the 25-year-old sato became a factor from the middle rounds, with Jorrin increasingly having to fight his way off the ropes under intense pressure, Reuters reported.

Jorrin, who came into the bout with an unblemished record of 28 wins, 13 by knockout, was wobbled by a big right hand from sato in the ninth round but answered with a left-right combination of his own at the bell.

Already cut above his left eye, Jorrin again finished strongly at the end of the 11th, but was fortunate to survive a fierce barrage of punches as Sato went for the knockout in the final round.

Sato, who left the ring with a record of 25 wins, one defeat and two draws, was clearly upset by the verdict, which was greeted by a cacophony of boos from the partisan crowd.