In recent years we have seen Japanese fighters being fast tracked at a thrilling and exciting pace. The top prospects aren't forced to wait and wait, and they aren't given the chance to stagnate, instead they are pushed, and told to sink or swim. That will be seen again this coming Monday when 2012 Olympic bronze medal winner Satoshi Shimizu (3-0, 3) takes on OPBF Featherweight champion Sa Myung Noh (11-3, 4), with Shimizu looking to become the “fastest” Japanese fighter to an OPBF title. For those unaware Shmizu was one of the long standing stars of the Japanese amateur scene for years. He competed at the 2008 Olympics, claimed bronze at the 2012 Olympics and has a reported amateur record of 135-25 (65). His amateur background was part of the reason his professional signature was pursued hard by a number or promoters, before he signed with the Ohashi Gym, who have fast tracked Shimizu's former national amateur team-mate Naoya Inoue and taken him to huge success. Although Shimizu did have his signature chased following the 2012 Olympics he decided to stay amateur an attempted to claim a place in the 2016 Olympics, before coming up short in a national qualifying event. Having missed out on a third successive Olympics he finally turned professional and debuted less than 13 months ago. On debut he stopped In Kyoo Lee in 5 rounds, and since then has impressively blasted away Carlo Demecillo, in frightening fashion, and Takuya Yamamoto. Those bouts have seen Shimizu show a rather peculiar, and unique style. He's long, and rangy, in fact at 5'10” he's freakishly tall for a Featherweight, and fighting as a southpaw he's exceptionally awkward. What makes him even more unique is he's very stand uppish, yet appears to have really unique angles, with his stance and stature both helping there. Offensively Shimizu is wild looking, though it's fair to say it's almost a controlled wildness as weird as that sounds. Given that he's wild with his offense it's fair to say that he looks open defensively. It's worth noting however that he rarely takes a clean shot and certainly has the amateur pedigree to suggest that he knows his way around the ring, and knows how to look after himself. It is worth noting however that Shimizu only has 9 rounds of professional boxing. The champion really made his mark earlier this year, in his title winning effort against Ryo Takenaka in Tokyo. Going in to that bout Noh had never fought outside of Korea, had lost his previous bout and had only fought 7 rounds in the previous year. The early going against Takenaka went the way most had expected, but a huge cut to Takenaka's lip in the later stages ended up turning the fight around, and Takenaka would be stopped in 10 rounds, in one of the biggest surprises in Asian boxing this year. Although that win put Takenaka on the Asian map, he had already been known in Korea, have won and defended the Korean title. In the ring we've seen Noh have a strange career. He was down against Min Suk Choi, and struggled by Jaymart Toyco, though showed great toughness and energy against Takenaka. His will to win saw him pull out a victory whilst down on all 3 cards and he certainly can't be questioned on his desire. Technically he's flawed, much like Shimizu, and is both slow and clumsy. But he really can take a shot, and really doesn't know how to quit. He lacks massive power, but has that damaging power that takes it's, and makes fighters question whether or not they should take risks. Coming in to this one Noh will know that he has to drag it out. There no point getting into a slug fest with Shimizu early, especially given the Japanese fighter's lack of professional experience. Instead we expect to see Noh show some real caution early, try and avoid Shimizu's bizarre angles, and ease himself into the contest. If he can do that, like he did in some ways against Takenaka, then he has a real chance. Saying that however we suspect Mr Ohashi has taken a very calculated gamble here, and has ran his man through long spars, testing his stamina, getting him to tighten up and fully preparing him to make a statement here. And we think Shimizu will actually go on to stop Noh in the later rounds, answering a number of questions en route to his win.
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For many fighters the OPBF title is a gateway to a potential world title fight. The belt might not always lead to biggest fights, but for many it is a gateway, and at the very least it tends to get the holders a world rankings. This coming Thursday we'll see one man hoping to use the OPBF title as a stepping stone, whilst another man will be looking to snatch the title away, and score their biggest win. The bout in question will see world ranked OPBF Featherweight champion Ryo Takenaka (16-3-1,9) defending his title, for the 4th time, and battling against little known Korean challenger Sa Myung Noh (10-3, 3), who looks to secure a career defining victory. Coming in to the bout Takenaka is one of the more proven Japanese Featherweights, he's faced a bit of a regional who's who, splitting a series with Ryol Li Lee losing to Hisashi Amagasa and scoring wins over Vinvin Rufino, Randy Braga and Ryuto Araya. During his career, which began in 2008, he has shown constant improvement and is a genuinely well schooled fighter with under-rated power, solid skills and he had developed his survival skills, following 2 stoppage losses including a 2014 bout to Amagasa. Takenaka might not be a world champion in the making, especially given he is now 32, but he's a solid technical fighter who knows how to box, and can bang, as he showed against Rufino with a beautiful KO back in August 2015. That was a KO set up by his skills, but his power at Oriental level cannot be ignored. Whilst Takeneke is seeking to extend his reign it's fair to say that Noh is looking to prove he's more than just a Korean domestic level fighter. Noh is a Korean Featherweight champion, but given the fractured Korean scene that doesn't say much, and given he lost last time out to Nam Joon Lee his limitations may have already been seen. It's worth noting that he was dropped last year by Min Suk Choi and hasn't really impressed, despite being a champion, on the Korean scene. In fact to date his biggest win has been a controversial one against Jaymart Toyco. For the challenger the bout is massive step up. He's a good fighter, but he's not shown his ability above Korean domestic level, and although, like all Koreans, he doesn't know how to quit, he's not going to have the skills to hand with Takenaka, who should retain his title with real ease, by either wide decision or stoppage. Every so often the Japanese domestic scene throws us a real corker of a match up. The bouts might not get much global attention but they are bouts to be genuinely excited about if you follow the Japanese scene, or even the Asian scene at large. One such bout comes this Sunday as Japanese Featherweight champion Shota Hayashi (29-5-1, 17) defends his title against mandatory challenger Kosuke Saka (15-3, 12), and without trying to sound to hyperbolic this could be one of the best domestic bouts in 2017. Hayashi won the title last year, when he out worked Noriyuki Ueno for the belt that had been vacated by Satoshi Hosono. The title win was a clear victory for Hayashi and one that saw him notch his most notable result to date, whilst attracting more attention to the Hatanaka Gym. In his first defense, back on New Year's Eve, Hayashi over-came Akifumi Shimoda with a narrow and hard fought decision win, which was streamed world wide courtesy of CBC, who were showing Kosei Tanaka's bout as well. Aged 29 Hayashi has found his groove in recent years and gone on a 15 fight unbeaten run since a loss in July 2011. That run has seen him go 14-0-1, with the wins over Ueno and Shimoda being joined by other notable domestic level wins over Koji Umetsu and Ryosei Arai. In the ring Hayashi is a bit crude, a bit open, but he has a great engine, refuses to stop and has under-rated power, having dropped Shimoda on route to a unanimous decision last time out. He's not a KO artist but he really lets his hands fly and comes to fight every time he's in the ring. For Saka this will be his first title fight and see him looking to announce himself as more than just a rising contender on the way up through the ranks. For some Saka is one of the most exciting and promising punchers in Japan, and that's been shown during his current 7-0 (7) run, which has included wins over Ryuto Kyoguchi, Burning Ishii and Takafumi Nakajima. In the ring Saka is a bit of a monster who comes to fight, and comes to take his opponents head clean off their shoulders. That hasn't always worked, but he has improved a lot from early career defeats. It's worth noting that the lost of those losses, 3 years ago, came to Hiroshige Osawa, whilst others have come to Jun Hamana, at 130lbs, and Masayuki Ito, a world class fighter in his own right. Whilst Saka has never been beyond 9 rounds he has shown that his power carries in to the later stages, with stoppages in rounds 7 and 8 so far. He is however a real danger man early, with his stoppage against Nakajima coming in 88 seconds and the win over Kyoguchi coming in 3 rounds. He is however a man who has a lot of question marks, still to answer, but looks like a monster rising through the ranks. With Hayashi's high work rate and Saka's solid power this looks likely to be a barn burner from the opening bell to the end, when ever that comes. If Hayashi can take Saka's power, and there is a good he can, then this will likely be a second successful defense for the champion. Like wise if Hayashi can back up Saka then the challenger will struggle to land his bombs. However, if Saka can land his power shots on Hayashi and use his physicality he could wear Hayashi down, as he has done in the past. It's also worth noting that Hayashi has faced adversity in the past and had to pull himself off the canvas to beat Kyoguchi, showing that he can bounce up to win fights. We're going to go out on a limb and pick Saka for the upset, but no result should be a real surprise with the bout set to be something very exciting! On February 9th Japanese fight fans in Tokyo get a title double header at the Korakuen Hall. The show isn't a big one, but it does feature one of the first OPBF title fights to take place in 2017, and sees a world ranked fighter defending his regional title. That world ranked fighter is OPBF Featherweight champion Ryo Takenaka (15-3-1, 8), who is seeking his 3rd defense of the title, and extending a 4 fight winning run. In the opposite corner will be the the hungry Ryuto Araya (11-4-1, 3), who will be getting his first title fight. Of the two men the most notable is Takenaka. He was a talented amateur, running up an excellent 73-13 (38) record in the unpaid ranks and was matched pretty hard from the off when he turned professional in 2008. After going 7-0-1 (4) early in his career Takenaka took on Masayuki Wakimoto and suffered his first loss, before suffering a second straight setback as he came undone against former world champion Ryol Li Lee. A 4-fight winning run followed before Takenaka was beaten in an OPBF title fight by Hisashi Amagasa, being stopped in the final round whilst ahead on all 3 cards. Since suffering such a heart breaking loss to Amagasa we've seen Takenaka really build a a nice little run. He beat Junki Sasaki in his ring return before stopping Filipino veteran Vinvin Rufino for the OPBF title and has defended it against Akira Shino and Randy Braga, easily out boxing Braga. In the ring Takenaka is a talented boxer with under-rated sting on his shots. He's not a puncher, but his KO of Rufino was genuinely brilliant and he's a good all rounder. His weakness seems to be his somewhat suspect chin, and that will likely hold him from being world class, but stoppage losses to Amagasa and Lee are nothing to be ashamed of. At 31, he turns 32 in May, he is probably in the final stages of his career but he will know that if he keeps defending his Oriental title a major international fight might be on the horizon in the future. Whilst plenty is known about Takenaka not much is really known about Araya, with the Kanagawa man not really making much of a splash so far. Like Takenaka he had an unbeaten run early in his career before suffering back-to-back defeats, falling from 4-0-1 to 4-2-1. Since then however things have been rather stop-start with Araya suffering stoppage losses to both Daisuke Watanabe and Takuya Yamaguchi, though the Yamaguchi loss was avenged last year. To date his best win is actually sandwiched between those loss, an upset win over Kazunori Takayama in July 2015. Coming in to this bout Araya is riding a 3 fight winning streak, and appears to have found some belief in his punching ability with 2 stoppages in his last 3, as opposed to just 1 stoppage win in his previous 13 bouts. Despite showing that power this is a monstrous step up for him and it's hard to see him having the boxing skill, or punching power, to keep Takenaka on his toes. We can't help but see this as another straight forward win for Takenaka, much like his defense against Shono. The two men are on totally different levels, and although Araya has shown some promise recently this is still a massive leap up in class. We wouldn't be surprised it Takenaka did however defend his title at this level for a little whilst whilst looking to move himself into a world title eliminator, rather than risk his ranking and title before being able to get a big bout. With some many world title bouts taking place on December 31st in Japan it can be easy to over-look the domestic action also taking place on the same day, that's despite a brilliant Japanese Featherweight title bout between reigning champion Shota Hayashi (28-5-1, 17) and former WBA Super Bantamweight champion Akifumi Shimoda (31-5-2, 14). On a typical day in the boxing calendar this would be an attention grabbing domestic headliner but here it's a bout relegated to being just a supporting bout. For Hayashi the bout serves as his first defense of the title, a title he won back in September when he defeated Noriyuki Ueno for the then vacant title. The performance against Ueno was one of Hayashi's best so far and showed the Hatanaka man had developed into a very strong fighter capable of moving into the world rankings in the future and it seems now, in his late 20's, he's coming into his own. The win over Ueno wasn't just a bout that saw Hayashi claim the title but also saw him extending an unbeaten run that now sits are 14 fights unbeaten, dating back more than 5 years, and features 13 wins and a draw. That has included victories not only over Ueno but also over the likes of good Japanese contenders like Ryosei Arai, Zuri Kannan, Yoshiyuki Takabayashi and Koji Umetsu and has given real legitimacy to his status as one of the rising men on the Japanese scene. Although on the rise Hayashi is still a flawed fighter who has a lot to improve on and he can be out worked and out boxed. It's not happened recently but it has happened before and he will know that he needs to keep improve if he's to make the cross over from Japanese champion to world title contender. His out put needs to improve and he needs to start sitting more on his shots, though every bout has seen an improvement recently. Aged 32 Shimoda is a man probably best known for suffering two KO of the year type defeats. One of those happened back in 2011 to Rico Ramos, in a bout he was comfortably winning, and the other in 2014 to Marvin Sonsona. Despite those losses Shimoda is a talented fighter who has won Japanese, OPBF and world titles at 122lbs with wins against the likes of Daisuke Yamanaka, Hidenori Kobayashi, Hiromasa Ohashi, Ryol Li Lee, Alejandro Gonzalez and Gosuke Seki. In the ring Shimoda is a talented boxer from the southpaw stance who has under-rated power, lovely counter punching and can force the fight when he needs to. He judges distance well, has under-rated movement and really solid technical ability. Sadly though his KO losses will forever haunt him and give any opponent belief that they too can catch him and render him unconscious. Given his age and the wear on his body Shimoda will know that this could be his last chance to fight in a title bout. A win could, potentially, put him in the world rankings and get him one more chance at the top but a loss will almost certainly be the end of his career, With the bout being a real must win for both men, for Shimoda to have much of a career and for Hayashi to establish his reign as a genuine one, we're expecting a very good, but yet tense bout. Hayashi will look for the KO and will try to break down and out work Shimoda, who has fought only 12 rounds in the last 14 months, Shimoda however will believe his more rounded skills and power will be the key. Sadly for the former world champion we think his age will be a problem here and Hayashi will just do enough to claim a decision win and retain his title, before potentially moving on to bigger things next year. At it's best the OPBF title scene is one of the most interesting with a lot of great fighters winning the Oriental title before progressing into world title bouts. Fighters like Kosei Tanaka and Naoya Inoue both used the Oriental title as a stepping stone in recent years en route to proving themselves at world level. Other times they are at a slightly lower level, but usually a more competitive level. That's the case this coming Thursday when OPBF Featherweight champion Ryo Takenaka (14-3-1, 8) defends his belt against once beaten Filipino Randy Braga (19-1-1, 5). Takenaka, a talented fighters from the Misako gym, won the title last year when he scored an eye catching KO win over former champion Vinvin Rufino. Since then he has defended the title just once, stopping the over-matched Akira Shono in 6 rounds. Prior to winning the title Takenaka had had a career that had promised a lot but delivered little. He had turned professional with a lot of promise and was moved into 8 rounders in just his third bout. Sadly a technical draw against Nobuhisa Coronita Doi slowed Takenaka's progress before a disappointing 2012 saw him suffer losses to Masayuki Wakimoto and Ryol Li Lee. A winning run following those losses was ended in 2014 when he lost to the then OPBF champion Hisashi Amagasa, though came incredibly close to upsetting Amagasa. Since the loss to Amagasa we've seen Takenaka go 3-0 (2) and prove that he's both a solid and well rounded boxer, as well as someone who hits harder than his record indicates. He's not world class, in any way, but he's a solid all rounder who shouldn't be ignored based on his losses. He's solid and whilst he's too old to really improve, given he's 31, he's still a very credible fighter and genuinely one of the top Featherweights in the Orient. The once beaten Braga debuted back in 2006 though took a lengthy break after his debut bout, leaving the ring for more than 4 years. Since returning to the ring in 2011 he's been busy and built an impressive looking record. His competition hasn't been murderer's row but wins against Vergil Puton, Carlo Magali and Neil John Tabanao are all solid victories, and his only loss was a controversial one in South Africa to the big punching Macbute Sinyabi. Although footage of Braga is rare and hard to hard we have seen him being dropped, with Danilo Pena dropping him with huge southpaw left hand. He recovered from that knockdown to defeat Pena but there are question marks about his chin, at least against decent Featherweights, and he'll be looking to avoid the under-rated power of Takenaka. If he can do that, and use his own skills, there is a good chance that he could out box Takenaka, or out work him up close. Although the bout should be competitive we do imagine the champion has to be favoured here, and will probably make the second defense of his title, though should have to bit down and prove himself on route to a win This coming Saturday we get two Japanese title fights, one of those is the relatively one sided looking Lightweight title fight between Nihito Arakawa and Yusuke Tsukada in Tokyo. The other is a more interesting bout in Aichi which will see Shota Hayashi (27-5-1, 17) face veteran Noriyuki Ueno (18-13-5, 5) in a bout for the vacant Japanese Featherweight title. The title was vacated earlier this year by Satoshi Hosono and left a scramble of fighters trying to get a shot at the belt. The scramble resulted in Hayashi Vs Ueno, with the winner to face former world champion Akifumi Shimoda in their first defense. On paper the favourite here will be Hayashi. The Hatanaka man has his promoter in charge of the show, he has the better record, he's the younger man and he's also the #1 Japanese ranked contender. Hayashi debuted back in September 2005 and reeled off 9 straight wins before beginning to struggle with his career and quickly fell to 11-3, going 2-3 in a 5 fight run over the space of 19 months. Since those setbacks Hayashi has got his career back on track, going 16-2-1, and more pertinently he's on an 11 fight winning run. It's fair to say that none of those wins are huge however there are some notable ones including wins over Koji Umetsu, Ryosei Arai and Zuri Kannan. In the ring Hayashi is full of confidence, confidence that is built from a long run of wins. In the ring however he looks pretty unremarkable. There's no sense of any fantastic trait., he's not hugely explosive or super sharp defensively. He is however solid on the whole and has a nice intensity in the ring, particularly with his body shots. He is a bit one paced and comes forward in a relatively predictable manner but could be in exciting fights if matched with a decent opponent. Sadly though his lack of a second gear will likely hold him back from ever progressing much beyond domestic level. Aged 34 the future of Ueno's career pretty much depends on his upcoming bout. The bout is also set to be the biggest of his 15 year career, and it's been a career of real ups and downs. It started on an up with an opening rounds KO win, but then seemed mostly down as he fell to 1-2 and then 2-6-1 (1). A string of positive results saw Ueno climb to 9-7-3 (3) and resulted in him getting his first title fight,which he lost to Takahiro Ao. He would go on to have two other Japanese title bouts, losing to Naoki Matsuda and Hisashi Amagasa, and an OPBF title fight, which he drew against Hiroshige Osawa. Despite his less than stellar looking record, with only a 50% win rate, Ueno has mixed at a high level with bouts against Osawa, Ao, Amagasa. He has also scored notable wins over the likes of Yuki Ogata, Manabu Fukushima, Tomoki Kanazawa and Motokazu Abe. He has the mindset of a fighter who has been written off and will be coming in to this one hungry to prove a point. Although Hayashi is the favourite, clearly, we suspect we might see a shock with Ueno putting it all on the line in an attempt to claim a title at his fifth time of asking. Whether he manages to pull it off or not is unclear but he will certainly go all out in pursuit of a victory, and as a result we think this bout will be very, very close and hotly contested with not a lot to separate the two fighters at the final bout. Hayashi may well get the result but their won't be much between the two men and a split or majority decision certainly wouldn't be a shock. In 2015 we saw Japan's Ryo Takenaka (13-3-1, 7) [竹中 良] claim the OPBF Featherweight title and score his most notable win so far, whilst also bouncing back from a 2014 that ended with disappointment. To begin 2016 he'll be looking to continue on the success that saw him score an eye catching KO over Vinvin Rufino and retain his title as he battles Akira Shono (9-7-2, 5) [正野 晃], a man looking to secure a defining win. Aged 30 Takenaka has got a few years left in the sport and given how he fought last year it seems like he's a man who is still improving, despite having been a professional for more than 7 years, and having been a touted prospect when he began his professional journey. Like many prospects in Japan Takenaka began his career as a 6 round fighter, and quickly progressed to 8 round bouts. Although touted as a novice Takenaka's career failed to go as expected and after 10 bouts he was 7-2-1 (4) with his career in the balance. Since then he has gone 6-1, losing only a 12th round TKO to Hisashi Amagasa in a bout he was winning prior to the stoppage. Those 6 wins have all come against opponents with winning records, and have included wins over Rufino, Rene Bestudio and Vergel Nebran. In the ring Takenaka is a talented boxer-mover though, as seen against Rufino, he also has very solid power with perhaps his biggest issue being his relative lack of durability, with 2 of his losses being by stoppage. Notably though those losses came to Amagasa and former world Ryol Li Lee, two very good fighters. When it comes to Shono there is very little footage available of him, though one thing that can't be denied is that at 35 years old Shono really is unlikely to get another opportunity if he fails to make the most of this one. Shono debuted almost 9 years ago, and struggled at times to get going. He began his career 2-2 (2), and other times was 5-4-2 (3) and even 7-7-2 (4), he is however on a 2 fight winning streak and has shown his ability by mixing with good fighters, though he was beaten by the likes of Ryota Kajiki and Satoru Sugita. With a 9-7-2 (5) record Shono certainly doesn't look like a great challenger, especially given that he has suffered a pair of stoppage losses, and has never gone beyond 8 rounds, with this bout being a 12 rounder. Whilst we don't know a lot about Shono we do know that he will be the major under-dog against Takenaka and we can't really see how the challenger will win, as a result we're predicting a stoppage win for the champion, likely inside 6 rounds. Boxing sees another trilogy reach it's conclusion later this month as Japanese Featherweight Satoshi Hosono (30-2-1, 20) [細野 悟] faces Rikiya Fukuhara (31-8-1, 23) [福原 力也] in a mandatory defense of the title. These two men first faced off back in 2012 when the two men clashed in a non-title affair. That bout saw Hosono over-come Fukuhara with a 7th round TKO, before going on to face Chris John in a WBA world title fight. The two men also clashed last year, with Hosono taking a well deserved decision win over Fukuhara. Since their second bout Hosono has fought 3 times, with the 2 most recent bouts being very competitive and tough contests for the champion who has fought 30 rounds since beating Fukuhara for the second time, with 10 of those coming against Takuya Watanabe and 10 against Akifumi Shimoda. Fukuhara on the other hand has gone just 4 rounds, quickly seeing off Yusuke Nakagawa last September. For those who don't follow the Japanese scene there is a chance you've still seen, or heard, of Hosono. He's a 3-time world title challenger who has suffered all 3 of his setbacks at the world level. They have included losses to Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym and Celestino Caballero and a technical draw against Chris John. Aside from those 3 bouts, the first of which came more than 6 years ago, he has been fighting against Japanese and Oriental scene where he has been one of the standouts at the weight. In the ring Hosono is a pressure fighter. He's a bit of a slow starter but has a great engine, knows how to come on strong in the second half of fights and combines very solid power with a genuine toughness. Unfortunately he is a bit limited, his footwork is somewhat slow and in recent years we've seen fighters being able to really push him close with some suspicions being that Hosono is very much on the slide. Whilst Hosono is fairly predictable pressure fighter Fukuhara is a boxer-puncher, who uses speed and movement to get his shots off, fights on the move and has the power to make any opponent at domestic level respect him. At his best he was an exciting fighter who combined excitement with flaws and wins over the likes of Yuji Gomez, Shoji Kimura and Toshimitsu Sakai are somewhat negated by losses to Kazunori Takayama, Allan Tanada and Seiichi Okada. Aged 37 the challenger has seen better days but will be coming in to this one known that one more loss, especially to Hosono will likely be the end of his dreams to become a 2-weight Japanese champion. Sadly for the challenger we see this bout going much the same way as their last bout, with Fukuhara having his moments, particularly early on, but coming up short against the naturally bigger, and younger, Hosono. If we're right we suspect Fukuhara will retire in the wake of the bout. Although Hosono has looked like a fighter coming to the end of his career recently he was very busy last year with 4 tough bouts in 9 months. The recent break will likely have helped him recover a bit and his desire to get one more world title fight. Japanese fight fans have it really lucky this year with so many great bouts to end the year. The most under-rated of those fights however is domestic title clash that sees former 3-time world title challenger Satoshi Hosono (29-2-1, 20) defends his Featherweight title against former WBA Super Bantamweight champion Akifumi Shimoda (30-4-2, 13). The bout, which is regarded by their promoters as an unofficial world title eliminator, is regarded as an under-card bout on a show that is genuinely stacked. For the 32 year old Hosono this will be the 5th defense of the title that he won in April 2014, when he defeated Yuki Ogata with a 10th round TKO. Whilst his reign has seen him go unbeaten since winning the title he has, arguable, under-performed whilst claiming wins over Gosuke Seki, Rikiya Fukuhara, Tatsuya Otsubo and Takuya Watanabe, with the Watanabe fight being a particularly competitive bout. Although he is the current Japanese champion Hosono is probably best known internationally for his title shots. They have seen him come up against 3 very talented fighters with the first being a narrow loss to Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, almost 6 years ago, the second was a very wide loss to Celestino Caballero, who had the sort of style that Hosono was never going to look against, whilst the third saw Hosono fight to a technical draw against Chris John, in what would be John's final successful defense. In the ring Hosono is the sort of guy who has the traits to make exciting fights. He also has the traits to be out boxed. He's very strong, physically very tough, heavy handed, hence his nickname “Bazooka”, and is an out and out pressure fighter who looks to make the most of his toughness and power. Sadly for him his footwork is slow, he's very deliberate and can be made to look very limited by opponents with some speed and movement. It's also fair to say that Hosono has slowed his output in recent years and is a notoriously slow starter which can often see him losing the first 3 rounds without mounting much offense. The longer bouts go the better he becomes, but giving away early rounds can be a genuine issue. Whilst Hosono has failed in his attempts to become a world champion the same cannot be said for Shimoda who shocked the world slightly when he took the WBA Super Bantamweight title from Ryol Li Lee back in January 2011. That was an up-and-down affair with Lee being dropped 3 times and Shiomoda himself being dropped once. Sadly however Shimoda's reign lasted just over 5 months before he was the victim of a KO of the Year contender against Rico Ramos, in a bout that Shimoda was winning with ease. That loss was to be Shimoda's third as a professional, but his first stoppage defeat. Following the loss to Ramos in 2011 Shimoda has gone 7-1-1 (3) with the most notable win coming against Bantamweight contender Alejandro Hernandez, who struggled to win more than a couple of rounds against Shimoda. Whilst the win over Hernandez is a solid one the most notable result from those 9 bouts was actually a staggering KO loss to Marvin Sonsona, who iced Shimoda with a single breath taking uppercutt. That KO by Sonsona, arguably the KO of the year for 2014, was followed by 16 months of inactivity but Shimods has since notched up back-to-back wins over Gosuke Seki and Jerry Nardo. At his best Shimoda is a fast boxer with accurate shots, good movement and intelligent southpaw straight. In terms of pure boxing ability he is very solid and can really show up many other, more well known fighters. Sadly however he lacks real fire power to make good opponents respect him and, worryingly, lacks the chin to seemingly take a real shot. His KO losses have both been spectacular and it does seem that a move to Featherweight may not be a good move for him. Stylistically this is a really compelling bout. Hosono's weakness is movement and Shimoda can certainly move Shimoda's weakness is, clearly his chin and Hosono can punch. Over 10 rounds the bout is a question of whether Shimoda can avoid being caught by one of Hosono's bombs. If he can then it's likely the title will change hands with Shimoda fighting a safety first bout to take home a decision. The odds are, however, that Hosono's pressure catches up with the challenger in the second half and he finally lands one on the button to down Shimoda for the 10 count. |
Previews
Having canned the old "Full Schedule" of Asianboxing we have instead decided to concentrate more on the major bouts. This section, the "Preview" section will look at major bouts involving OPBF and national titles. Hopefully leading to a more informative style for, you the reader. Archives
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