 On November 13th Japanese fight fans at Korakuen Hall, along with those willing to pay an excessive price to watch on Twitcasting, will get the chance to see Japanese Female Featherweight champion Kimika Miyoshi (15-12-1, 6) take on Yoshie Wakasa (6-2, 2). For Miyoshi the bout will serve as her second defense of the title, which she won in September 2018. Wakasa on the other hand will be hoping it's third time lucky, following two previous losses in title shots.
The champion is the much, much more well known fighter. The 36 year old veteran has been a professional since 2008 and has had a rather remarkable, if somewhat over-looked career. She he won OPBF female titles at Bantamweight, Featherweight and Super Featherweight, and is now enjoying a reign as the Japanese national champion. As well as he title successes she has fought numerous times at world level, and shared the ring with the likes of Yazmin Rivas, Hyun Mi Choi and Shannon O'Connell. Although no world beater Miyoshi is a handful. She's tough, rugged, has a good work rate, surprising power, and a lot of experience. There is a question as to when father time will catch up with, but we have seen top female fighters having success well into their 40's so we wouldn't assume her age would be a major issue, and instead suspect she still has several years left in her body. In Wakasa we have an interesting challenger, but someone who has failed to get over the winning line in recent bouts. She began her career in 2014 and won her first 6 bouts, before coming up short against Miyo Yoshida in a Japanese Female Bantamweight title fight in 2019. That loss was then followed by a loss to OPBF Female Featherweight champion Wakako Fujiwara in September 2019. With those two losses we are now more than 2 years removed from her last win, and it's hard to know where her confidence is at. At 32 years old Wakasa is the younger fighter, but she's no spring chicken, and she's certainly not a fighter who has done much in recent bouts to scream that she's a champion. Despite that she shouldn't be written off. Like Miyoshi the challenger is a rugged, tough type. She's clumsy, she's slow, but she comes to fight and knows how to make things ugly. Given how both fighters are ones who like to fight up close, both neglect their jabs both like to fight we expect this to be a really rough fight, and probably a very ugly one. But we expect both fighters to be pretty well matched over all, and for the fight to be a pretty entertaining at times. A fun mess, if you will. Sadly for the challenger we have got to predict a win for Miyoshi. Her experience, and higher level of competition will prove vital here. Both are similar in many ways, but the huge gulf in experience will, we suspect, play a big difference maker. Prediction - UD6 Miyoshi
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 Whilst we have 2 title fights in Tokyo this coming Saturday it's worth noting there will actually be a third title fight take place in Japan, with the lesser of those coming in Kanagawa as Japanese veteran Kimika Miyoshi (14-12-1, 5) defends her Japanese female Featherweight title. In the opposite corner to the 35 year old champion is little known challenger Aira Midorikawa (5-0, 1), also 35, in what will be her first title bout of any kind.
Miyoshi is a legitimate veteran, with more than 11 years professional experience behind her. That long career has been filled with ups and downs, from losing her first 2 pro bouts to winning her OPBF title back in 2013, fighting in world titles bouts and becoming a rare 3 weight OPBF champion. She's not had a smooth career, but she has had an under-rated, and successful, one with bouts across the bout and getting chances to test herself with some of the best out there. Although an inconsistent fighter through her 27 fight career Miyoshi has proven to be tough, exciting and aggressive. Sadly though Miyoshi is slow, cumbersome, technically limited and has neither impressive hand speed or foot speed. She's a trier, we'll give her that, but she's incredibly slow, often following opponents around the ring and struggling to get her shots off before her opponent gets away. When she managed to get her work off on the inside she looks good, but it often takes a willing opponent for her to get the action up close. Debuting at the age of 33 in 2017 Midorikawa really didn't have much time to impress and sadly she hasn't really managed to do much at all as a professional. Her competition so far has been novices, and she hasn't looked great, despite remaining unbeaten. She's looked slow, clumsy and very light punching. Unlike some fighters in female boxing, who can turn pro late with a strong amateur background, there doesn't appear to be a natural fighter here, but instead someone that Watanabe Gym are trying to make into a fighter. Had this happened at a younger age Watanabe might have been able to get something out of her, but wee feel it's too little too late. Watching Midorikawa we see a strong and big looking fighter, she has a cautious style yet has an aggressive mentality, coming forward, but doing so with a lot of jabs and a lot of weight on her back foot. She doesn't appear to have much in the way of power, and struggles to get respect of opponents, which is a genuine issue. That lack of power isn't helped by the fact that Midorikawa doesn't really throw a very good right hand. Her power shot comes from last week, and is so badly telegraphed and slow that it is unlikely to ever stop any one. Whilst it's clear Miyoshi's career hasn't got long left, we can't help but feel she should have far, far too much for Midorikawa, who has shown little to test the veteran champion. We expect Miyoshi's pressure and work rate to be the difference here and for her to out work the challenger en route to a clear decision. Prediction - UD6 Miyoshi  The female boxing scene is a rather weird one right now. We have a lot of really exciting emerging talent around the globe and then we have a big drop off to the domestic type fighters. That's seen quite clearly in the upcoming Japanese Featherweight title fight between Miki Mitsuda (5-5, 4) and Kimika Miyoshi (13-12-1, 5), who are both rather limited fighters. On paper this looks like a 50-50 bout, which is always a good thing, but it certainly doesn't look like a title fight.
Despite it's looks this is going to be a bout for the national title, and that's kinda disrespectful to the belt in some ways. Despite our complaints however the bout looks like it could be a fun one to watch. The limited, but relatively hard hitting, Mitsuda enters as the Japan and will be looking to make her first defense of the title. She won the belt this past April, when she stopped Asami Jinnari in their second bout, following a stoppage loss to Jinnari in 2018. She's turned her career around from a 1-4 start, but has yet to impress and has fought pretty much her whole career against low level domestic opposition. On paper she looks like a fearsome puncher, but in reality her record says more about her opposition than herself, and she's never likely to find herself competing on the world scene. She's crude, open and really just proof of why sometimes having a title says more about eligibility than skills. At 35 years old Miyoshi is probably on the slide, though as we've seen in recent years female fighters do tend to slip a lot slower than their male counterparts. Sadly for Miyoshi she has lost her last 4, though that has included losses to Shannon O'Connell, Hyun Mi Choi and Wakako Fujiwara. At her best Miyoshi is a fringe world class fighter who has claimed OPBF titles over 3 weight classes, Bantamweight, Super Featherweight and Featherweight and has proven to be a durable fighter. Sadly she's certainly slowing down and is not the fighter who upset the likes of Riyo Togo and Chika Mizutani. Instead she's a fighter who is low on confidence and getting older by the fight. Coming in to this it seems like the fighter on the 4 fight slide should be the under-dog against the champion, who has stopped her last 2 opponents and avenged her most recent loss. We however are picking the experience, toughness and durability of Miyoshi. We feel Miyoshi will simply wear down and Mitsuda, mentally and physically to take the win. Mitsuda will likely start the better of the two, but Miyoshi will come on strong to take the win. Prediction - UD6 Miyoshi |
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