Ryo Matsumoto to target titles

Ohashi Gym have announced that if the promising Ryo Matsumoto (11-0, 9) can get past Thailand's Denkaosan Kaovichit (63-4-1, 26) he will begin chasing titles.

The plan appears to be to move the 20 year old Matsumoto on to either a national or Oriental title by the end of the year and then push him on his way towards world honours in 2015. 

For a title fight it would mean that Matsumoto would have to decide if was wanting to make a mark at 115lbs or at 118lbs.

If he was to fight at 115lbs the domestic title option would come against the winner of the upcoming contest between Yohei Tobe and Sho Ishida and would come towards the very end of the year. If he was to aiming for the OPBF title at Super Flyweight that would possibly come against Arthur Villanueva, however with Villanueva having not defended the belt for over a year there is a possibility that Matsumoto could challenger for the vacant title.

At 118lbs things are a bit clearer. For the domestic title Matsumoto would have to get past Kentaro Masuda, who recently made the first defence of his title stopping Konosuke Tomiyama. For the OPBF title Matsumoto would likely need to beat Ryosuke Iwasa, or hope that Iwasa vacates. Interestingly there is talk about Masuda facing Iwasa which unify the belts making like difficult here for Matsumoto.

The long game for Ohashi seems to be to take Matsumoto to the top quickly though in our eyes he's 3 or 4 fights before being ready to fight for one of the OPBF belts though he would competitive with one of the Japanese champions.

(Image courtesy of boxingnews.jp)

---