This coming Thursday fight fans at Korakuen Hall will get the chance to see OPBF female Flyweight champion Chaoz Minowa (6-3, 5) make her first defense, as she takes on Yumemi Ikemoto (7-1) in an interesting looking 8 rounder.
 
Sadly whilst this will be Minowa's first defense it's not like her reign has just begun, in fact she won the title way back in 2016, in just her third professional bout. Back then she was regarded as one of the hottest prospects in female boing, and there was talk about her going up and down the weights and winning world titles in a huge number of weights. Sadly however things haven't worked out for her, and now, some 5 years later, this OPBF title is still the only one she has held. Despite that she has been busy and she's gone 3-3  (3) since her OPBF title win, and challenged for world titles on a number of occasions. Sadly she's fallen short at world level, but it does seems like she could have success by dropping back to Oriental level.
 
The problem for Minowa is that, despite being a good amateur, he style as a professional is rough and raw. She's more focused on her power and aggression rather than her boxing skills. It's made her fun to watch, but it's also come at an expensive of her stamina and her results and there's been times where a more conservative approach in the ring could have yielded better results, such as her bout with Tenkai Tsunami in 2018. She has also been plagued with inactivity and fought has fought just 6 times since winning the title back on December 13th 2016! From those 6 bouts, 4 took place in 2018.
 
Sadly coming in to this one it's not just Minowa who has lacked activity, but also the challenger. Ikemoto began her professional in 2016 and was 6-1 by the end of 2018, but has only fought once since then, with that being a decision win over limited Filipino fighter Gretel de Paz. To date her most notable result came in 2018, when she beat Yuki Koseki for the Japanese female Flyweight title, but sadly she never defended that title. Rather than building on that win she has been inactive, and comes into this bout after having been out of the ring for well over 2 years, and close to 3 years!
 
In the ring Ikemoto is an aggressive, fun fighter to watch. She comes forward and applies pressure, has under-rated power and lets her shots go up close. She's not particularly polished, but she is exciting, comes to fight, and puts a lot into her shots. She also gives opponents chances to catch her, and she's quite basic in a lot of things she does. She comes forward in straight lines, she throws wide shots and she can be very open to counter shots. So far she has, on the whole, gotten away with her flaws, but this is a step up in class for her.
 
Given the styles of the two women it's hard to imagine this being anything other than a fun, brutal action bout. Sadly for Ikemoto her lack of power will be an issue here, and we suspect that Minowa's extra pop will be the difference maker in a very exciting action bout. We expect to see the two women spending a lot of time toe to toe and unloading, making for an eye catching and thrilling contest, with Minowa doing enough to take a close win.
 
Prediction - UD8 Minowa ​

This coming Thursday is a big day for women's boxing in Japan, with a show featuring 6 title bouts, including 2 world title bouts. On paper the better of those bouts is a WBO Light Flyweight title bout, as the unbeaten Chaoz Minowa (5-0, 4) takes on veteran Tenkai Tsunami (24-12, 13), with the two fighting for the currently vacant title. On paper the bout might not look anything special, but given the styles of the two women and their experiences, both amateur and professional, we're expecting to see something very special.

Of the two fighters it's Tsunami who is the more proven and experienced, which should be no real surprise given she has 7 times more fighters under her belt. In fact not only that but she also has more world title fights than Minowa has total professional bouts. She might also have more losses, but when you get a fighter like Tsunami the losses only tell a fraction of the real story, and don't have context. The real context to those losses is that she has fought a real who's who of the female boxing world and suffered losses to world class fighters like Naoko Yamaguchi, Janeth Perez, Mariana Juarez, Jessica Chavez, Zunila Munoz, Arely Mucino and Carolina Rodriguez. She could have padded her record, but instead fought a who's who, often above her natural weight.

Whilst it's easy to focus on the losses of Tsunami we can't ignore the fact she's a formerworld champion, having held the WBA female Super Flyweight title from February 2009 to July 2012. During her reign she made 5 defenses, beating the likes of Kayoko Ebata and Rie Fujimoto ahd she showed her world class ability.

In the ring Tsunami is an all action fighter. She is technically limit, but has a great engine, a fantastic work rate, a gritty determinedness, a solid toughness and always makes for good action bouts. She lacks the speed or skills to really test the very best, hence her double digit losses, but is a hard night for pretty much anyone, and could easily have had a better looking record with just a tiny bit of good luck.

Whilst Tsunami has fought almost everyone of note the same clearly can't be said of Minowa, who has only been a professional for about 18 months. So far she has faced very limited opponents from across Thailand, Korea and the Philippines and really not been tested that much. The one test she had came from Carleans Rivas, who Tsunami stopped in 2, and even then she took a clear 8 round decision over the Filipino. In the ring Minowa is an ultra-aggressive fighter who looks to stop every opponent as quickly as possible. So far it has seen her stop 4 of her first 5 opponents and she has racked up only 18 rounds in her first 5 bouts, but she has looked very aggressive and very exciting so far.

Minowa has impressed, but also left us with a lot of questions. We don't know what she's like in the later rounds, how her stamina holds up, what she's like under pressure, how copes with a step up in class and a lot of other questions. From what we've seen, and from what we know of her amateur background, we expect that she'll be able to step up and rise to the challenge, but this is a huge step up in class.

The bout really comes down to whether Minowa can fight at a high pace for 10 rounds, whether she can avoid the heavy shots from Tsunami and whether she has the skills to out box someone of Tsunami's ability and experience. The step up is what makes this so interesting and such a hard to call bout. We edge towards Minowa having the movement and amateur background to out manoeuvre, though can certainly imagine Tsunami's pressure getting to Minowa and the veteran taking a notable win over her younger foe.