Japan Sets Major Yearend Fights for Best Boxer, Boxing Nation Credentials
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 16 Nov 2022
As the rest of the world is closing shop as far as major boxing bouts are concerned in observance of the merriest time of the year, Japan is not letting up.
As its tradition, Japan is holding the year's remaining biggest fights in time for the Christmas and New Year's season but this time in anticipation of its top fighter being crowned as the planet's best boxer as well as to underline its claim as runaway best boxing nation in Asia and inarguably one of the top in the world.
On December 13, Japan is hosting in Saitama the fight between unified WBA-WBC-IBF and Ring Magazine lineal world bantamweight titlist Naoya "The Japanese Monster" Inoue and UK's WBO titleholder Paul Butler in eager expectation of crowning Inoue as its first undisputed world boxing champion and being finally acknowledged as the best pound for pound fighter in the planet.
It was also around this time in 2019 that Inoue won the finals of the World Boxing Super Series in the bantamweight division beating Filipino Nonito Donaire to add his WBA belt to the IBF trinket he earlier won over Emmanuel Rodriguez of Puerto Rico. Last June, Inoue met Donaire in a title rematch and proceeded to snatch the WBC title to his collection via brutal two round stoppage.
Inoue is highly expected to blow out Butler and win the undisputed world bantamweight crown fortifying his bid to finally topple Ukraine's unified WBA-IBF-WBO heavyweight titleholder Oleksander Usyk from the top post as the best pound for pound fighter in the world.
The undercards will feature some of Japan's up and coming fighters including Naoya's younger brother Takuma who is now fighting in the super bantamweights, against the Philippines Jake Bornea. Two other young still unbeaten Japanese fighters Andy Hiraoka and Toshiki Takei will be seeing action in WBA Asia and OPBF title bouts in the supporting bouts.
On New Year's Eve, Japan will host another and potentially the last world championship fight of 2022 as WBO super flyweight titlist Kazuto Ioka will clash in a world title unification against WBA regular world champion American Joshua Franco possibly in Tokyo. The winner will defend against another outstanding Japanese Junto Nakatani who has recently vacated his WBO world flyweight crown to campaign at 115 lbs.
A few weeks ago, Japan made headlines when WBC light flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji collided with WBA and Ring Magazine lineal world light flyweight titlist Hiroto Kyoguchi in a high profile unification bout that was largely followed and streamed in other parts of the world including the USA. That fight won via 7th round KO by Teraji proved the bigger all Nippon world title bout than that of Ioka defending his WBO super flyweight belt against then highly regarded undefeated WBO flyweight champion Kosei Tanaka who remained highly rated to this day or Ioka's earlier WBA-WBC unification at straw weight with Akira Yaegashi.
Prior to these, Japan has six world boxing champions holding nine major belts, to include WBO world minimumweight titlist Masataka Taniguchi.
The US and Mexico by the sheer numbers of their pro boxers and the popularity as well as extent of the fight sport in their territories have more world boxing titleholders but none as popular and transcendent as Naoya Inoue who is currently just behind Usyk in the pound for pound ratings above Terrence Crawford and Errol Spence who are refusing to fight one another, and Canelo Alvarez who was felled from the top by his unexpected worst defeat to Russian Dmitry Bivol.
By January 2023, Japan hopes to add one more as the highly promising Ginjiro Shigeoka challenges Mexico's WBO minimumweight titlist Daniel Valledares in a fight to be held also in the country.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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