Japan versus USA This Spring: Power Against Master Boxing
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 09 Feb 2023
It will be Japan versus the USA this spring with the winners firmly staking claims to being the best fighter or at the very least among the best fighters in the world today.
More appropriately, it will be Japan's widely established powerful style of fighting which will be pitted against the black American's famous but sometimes unappreciated style of master defensive boxing.
Naoya Inoue who is noted for his fights that usually end in highlight reel knockouts, will be gunning to win another world titles and continue his conquest at his new division, the super bantamweight or junior featherweight against American unified WBC-WBO titlist Stephen Fulton, one of the latest exponents of the black American style of defensive boxing.
The schedule and venue of the Inoue versus Fulton fight is yet to be finalized but both camps are saying it will happen this spring.
At around the same time, Japan's latest knockout sensation Shuichiro Yoshino will take on Shakur Stevenson, one of the latest products of the Floyd Mayweather Jr 's "school of master boxing" in a virtual world title eliminator at lightweight where his fellow American boxing wiz Devin Haney is the reigning undisputed world champion.
There may be no longer need to introduce Inoue, Fulton and even Stevenson, all of whose recent ring exploits are well noted and publicised.
But who is Yoshino?
Yoshino 31, with a record of 16 wins,12 by KO, has held the WBO Asia Pacific title since 2020. He is ranked as the world's 9th best active lightweight by BoxRec. He most recently knocked out fellow Japanese knockout artist Masayoshi Nakatani who has previously defeated Felix Verdejo and sternly tested both Teofimo Lopez and Vassily Lomachenko before losing. He also defeated other noted fighters as former WBO super featherweight titlist Masayuki Ito and top rated Filipino Harmonito de la Torre,the latter by first round knockout for the vacant OPBF crown.
Yoshino made his third WBO Asia Pacific title defense against Masayoshi Nakatani on 1 November 2022, on the undercard of the Kenshiro Teraji and Hiroto Kyoguchi light flyweight unification bout. He retained his title by a sixth-round knockout, after twice knocking Nakatani down.
On 11 January 2023, Yoshino has accepted an order from the WBC to face Shakur Stevenson in a lightweight title eliminator. Yoshino is scheduled to face Stevenson on 8 April 2023, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Based on these alone, Yoshino, long in wingspan as he is tall at 5'9" and packing the power of a legit lightweight, is figured to threaten or at least sternly test Stevenson who has just moved up to 135 lbs after sterling stints at both featherweight and junior lightweight.
This Japan versus the USA themed boxing events which promise to be slambang affairs this spring are eagerly awaited by boxing fans not only in those two countries but other boxing crazy nations as well for such rarely happen.
Though Japan has won many world championships through the years since the post war, they were mostly fought against fellow Asians, Latino and Europeans.
Unlike Filipino fighters who being the pioneers in pro boxing in Asia were the first to experience big time prizefighting by competing against some of the best of the USA from the time of Pancho Villa and Ceferino Garcia. Which was carried through the era of Flash Elorde and until the recent careers of Manny Pacquiao and Nonito Donaire.
The nearest precedence in history of a Japan versus the USA is Koichi Wajima's two fight series against Oscar Alvarado for the then undisputed world junior middleweight championship in the 70s. But that featured two fighters with similar styles of fighting and Alvarado is not black American.
Top image courtesy of NAOYA INOUE (The Monster) Superfans on Facebook.
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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