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Last time we did one of these we spoke about magic moments in boxing, and then went on to share Yuichi Kasai knocking the gumshield out of Osamu Nagaishi's mouth in brilliant KO. Today we have another similarly obscure but brutal moment, though this time it's from South Korea, feature two debutants and probably the smallest ring we've ever seen. This was one of those gems that 99.9% of the boxing community will never have seen, whilst those who have seen it have likely rewatched it. Several times. Jin Su Kim (0-0) Vs Andrew Silva (0-0) In one corner was Korean teenager Jin Su Kim, an 18 year old southpaw from Ansan who was making his professional debut. Stood at 5'10" he had a long and lanky frame at Welterweight, and towered over his opponent. That opponent was Korean based Canadian Andrew Silva, a 26 year old who looked like a man compared to the boy he was up against. Silva, like Kim, was also making his debut but at 5'5" he was giving away significant height and reach to the youngster. The reality is that very little was known about either man at the time. In fact back in May 2015, when the bout took place, Silva was known by just his first name of "Andrew", causing further intrigue into the bout among the curious of the hardcore. When the referee was giving the two men their instructions two things were clear. The ring was tiny and Kim looked like he was a foot taller than Silva. Their may have only been 5" difference in height but it looked more. The two men looked like they belonged in very different weight classes. From the opening bell Kim looked to use his physical advantages boxing at range, not an easy task in such a small ring. Silva came forward trying to rough up the youngster but nothing in the first 2 minutes hinted at what we were about to see. Almost out of nowhere Kim landed a perfect 1-2, with his straight left instantly turning off Silva's lights as the Canadian's crashed face first into the canvas. He was out cold down for quite a few seconds before his team helped him. We don't imagine many have seen this KO, despite the fact it took place more than 5 years ago, but it's one that really does need to be seen, rewatched and relived! It's that good!
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We've all heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and we've decided to put our spin on things with "Six degrees of separation" looking to connect Asian fighters you may never have assumed were connected! Today we connect Thailand's Sirimongkol Singwancha, a former 2-weight world champion, to former world title challenger Z Gorres.
Just as ground rules, we're not doing the more basic "A beat B who beat C who beat D" type of thing, but instead we want to link fighters in different ways. As a result we will limit A fought B connections, and try to get more varied connections together, as you'll see here! We also know there are often shorter routes to connect fighters, but that's not always the most interesting way to connect them. 1-Thailand's Sirimongkol Singwancha, also known as Sirimongkhon Iamthuam among other names, has had a bizarre career in professional boxing. His long and lengthy career saw him fight more than 100 bouts and move through the weights, going from Flyweight up Light Heavyweight. During his best years he was a 2-weight world champion claiming the WBC Bantamweight and Super Featherweight world titles. To win the Super Featherweight title win Sirimongkol over-came Kengo Nagashima, in 2002 for the vacant title. 2-Sadly now a days few people really mention Kengo Nagashima, despite the fact he has a pretty interesting and notable career of his own. Between 1995 and 2010 he racked up a 39-4-2 (18) record and won OPBF and JBC titles at both Super Featherweight and Lightweight. Interestingly Nagashima's debut came on a show headlined by the then OPBF Super Bantamweight champion Yuichi Kasai. 3-In the ring Yuichi Kasai was a successful fighter, despite failing to win a world title in his career, though he did have 3 world title shots. After retiring from the ring he made a name for himself as one of the best trainers in Japan and helped cultivate a number of champions at the Teiken Gym. One of those world champions was Toshiaki Nishioka, who went on to win the WBC Super Bantamweight title. 4-In his final professional bout Toshiaki Nishioka faced off with Filipino fighter Nonito Donaire in 2012. Whilst the bout was an interesting one on paper it turned out to be a lot less interesting in the ring, with Nishioka looking a million miles removed from the fighter that had beaten Jhonny Gonzalez more than 3 years earlier. It ended when Donaire finished off Nishioka in round 9, and the Japanese fighter retired with a very nice final career purse whilst Donaire continued to build his legacy. 5-As we suspect many will be aware, Nonito Donaire isn't the only boxer in the family. Another boxer from the Donaire family isNonit's bother Glenn Donaire, who was also a professional, though a much less successful one. Whilst Nonito has been a global boxing star his older brother twice fought for world titles but came up short in both of those bouts, before ending his career in 2012. 6-It's fair to say that Glenn Donaire's career was an up and down one. He did get two world title fights, and did pick up some good wins, but also suffered a number of losses. Interestingly his only stoppage loss came to fellow Filipino Z Gorres, who stopped him in a round in 2005 at the MGM Grand! Between 1997 and 2005 Japanese Bantamweight Nobuaki Naka (18-2-2, 12) was an interesting fighter and someone who was an exciting fighter involved in a number of notable bouts. He wasn't the best fighter, not by any stretch, but he was someone worthy of knowing more about.
Naka turned pro in 1997, won the All Japan Rookie of the Year in 1998, the Japanese Bantamweight title in 2000 and would later fight for the WBA world title. He ended his career in 2005 following a multi-knockdown war with Eiji Kojima. During his career Naka scored noteworthy wins over Eichi Okada, Taiji Okamoto and Shigeru Nakazato, and defended the Japanese national title 7 times during his career. For you readers wanting to know more about Naka here are 5 midweek facts about Nobuaki Naka! 1-Naka was one of 5 children! He had 3 sisters and a younger brother. 2-As an amateur Naka ran up a very respectable record of 14-2 (7), after picking up the sport in high school. 3-Naka's reign as the Japanese Bantamweight came to an end due to injury. The fighter had broken his clavicle in December 2002 when he was involved in a traffic accident whilst doing his part time job, a milk delivery man. 4-Naka's most famous bout is his 2004 clash with Johnny Bredahl for the WBA Bantamweight title. That bout was put together on rather short notice with Naka having around a month to prepare. Originally Bredahl was supposed to face interim champion Hideki Todaka, but the negotiations broke down, leading both "champions" to fight in different bouts in March 2004. That resulted in Naka getting the call to travel to Denmark for Bredahl, whilst Todaka fought Julio Zarate. Rather interestingly both Naka and Todaka lost, making a March 2004 bad month for Japanese Bantamweights! 5-The January 2005 war between Naka and Kojima would actually be the final bout of both men. The war saw Naka being dropped 3 times, Kojima being dropped once, and neither man ever fighting again. A real shame that such a great bout took such a toll on both fighters. When we talk about true legends few rival Gabriel "Flash" Elorde. The Filipino great has left a last impact on the sport and his family have kept his name alive in boxing, with his grandchildren still being active fighters. The name "Flash Elorde" is one of the that every fight fan should be aware of, whether they follow the Asian scene or not. He was one of the early Super Featherweight greats and one of the most significant Asian fighters of all time.
Whilst Elorde is a legend there are lots that fans aren't aware regarding him, his career and his life. With that in mind here we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Flash Elorde 1-Elorde was part of a big family, being the youngest of 15 children 2-Elorde dropped out of school at a young age due to the financial issues of his family, who were extremely poor. 3-After making his professional debut in June 1951 Elorde fought at least once every year up to 1971 apart from 1968. Amazingly he managed to cram a staggering 11 bouts into his first 6 months as a professional and 21 bouts into the first 18 months as a professional 4-Although Elorde fought a staggering 118 professional bouts he only fought 88 unique opponents. He fought 22 opponents more than once, including Teruo Kosaka, who he fought 5 times, Shigeji Kaneko, who he fought 4 times, and Isao Ichihara, Tommy Romulo and Masashi Akiyama, who he fought 3 times each. 5-Not only was Elorde a world champion but he was also a 4-time OPBF title holder. He was a 2 weight OPBF champion, winning both the Bantamweight and Lightweight titles, he is also the only 3-time OPBF Lightweight champion and he was also the first 4-time OPBF champion! 6-Whilst we've had a host of Filipino southpaw world champions in recent years, notably Manny Pacquiao, it's worth noting that Flash Elorde was the first. He was the country's 6th world champion, but their first southpaw to reach the top of the sport. Also with 11 defenses of the lineal Super Featherweight crown he had more defenses than anyone else. His 7 defenses of the physical WBC and WBA Super Featherweight title was a Filipino record until Donnie Neites set 9 defenses with the WBO Light Flyweight title, the WBO wasn't even formed until after Elorde passed away! 7-Elorde held, and defended, the OPBF Lightweight title at the same time as holding the WBA and WBC Super Featherweight titles. 8-Rather oddly Elorde lost both the OPBF Lightweight and the unified Super Featherweight titles to the same man, Yoshiaki Numata. He did that in excessive June's. He lost the OPBF, then known as OBF, title in June 1966 and the WBA and WBC world titles to Numata in June 1967. 9-Elorde was featured in a number of adverts, notably for San Miguel Beer. 10-Elorde was a chain smoker and sadly paid the price, dying of lung cancer in 1985 at the age of 49, just months short of his 50th birthday We've all heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and we've decided to put our spin on things with "Six degrees of separation" looking to connect Asian fighters you may never have assumed were connected! Today we connect former world champion Rodel Mayol and to multi-weight champion Sirimongkol Singwancha.
Just as ground rules, we're not doing the more basic "A beat B who beat C who beat D" type of thing, but instead we want to link fighters in different ways. As a result we will limit A fought B connections, and try to get more varied connections together, as you'll see here! We also know there are often shorter routes to connect fighters, but that's not always the most interesting way to connect them. 1-Former WBC Light Flyweight champion Rodel Mayol made his debut on July 1st 2000, when he took on Joseph Villasis. Also debuting on this very same card was Dindo Castanares. 2-At one point Dindo Castanares looked like he was going places, but his career stumbled and fell apart in later years, with his final bout coming on on November 17th 2006, when he was stopped in 2 rounds by Allan Luxford. On that very same day the then WBC Flyweight champion Pongsaklek Wonjongkam retained his title, defeating Monelisi Myekeni in what was Wonjongkam's 16th defense of the title. 3-It's fair to say that Pongsaklek Wonjongkam was a busy fighter and fought a number of opponents multiple times. The most well known of those was Daisuke Naito, who he fought 4 times, but there were others, such as Jerry Pahayahay, who he fought 3 times. Another man Wonjongkam fought multiple times was Bernardo Jun Dabalos, including Wonjongkam's 1994 debut! 4-It's fair to describe Bernardo Jun Dabalos as a journeyman, a regional level journeyman. He travelled for many of his fights whilst running up a rather poor 16-19-2 (9) record between 1992 and 1998. His first bout in Japan came in 1995 when he lost to Satoru Abe on a card headlined by Yasuei Yakushiji defending the WBC Bantamweight title against Cuauhtemoc Gomez. 5-In 1994 Yasuei Yakushiji took part in his most famous bout, a clash with with the then WBC "interim" Bantamweight champion Joichiro Tatsuyoshi. The bout was massive news for boxing in Japan and really grabbed the attention of the nation as two of it's most notable stars battled in a thriller. 6-Despite losing to Yakushiji in their massive 1994 clash the charismatic Joichiro Tatsuyoshi would remain a relevant figure in the sport. He moved up to Super Bantamweight, losing twice to the then WBC champion Daniel Zaragoza, before dropping back to Bantamweight and claiming the WBC title with a huge upset win against Sirimongkol Singwancha to become a 2-time champion. We suspect many people reading these article go through boxrec records of famous fighters and spot some lesser known names on there. A great example of that is Manny Pacquiao's record, which includes a single bout that took place in Japan. That was in 1998, when he took on Shin Terao, and stopped Terao inside a round. We suspect that for many that is the only time they've seen Terao's name, though he is actually a pretty interesting character. Today, as part of our 5 midweek facts series, we're going to look at Shin Terao (10-5-1, 1) and bring you 5 facts about Terao, to add to the knowledge that Manny Pacquiao blitzed him. So here are 5 midweek facts about Shin Terao 1-As an amateur Terao went 2-6. That's not a typo, he lost 6 of his 8 amateur bouts. Given that he would later facing one of the best fighters of all time and would go on to challengfe fior the Japanese Flyweight title that's a really staggering fact. 2-All 5 of Terao's professional losses came inside the distance! The loss to Pacquiao was actually Terao's second opening round loss, and was followed by two more early losses before he hung up the gloves and moved away from boxing. Things weren't helped by the fact he was a light puncher himself, stopping only one opponent in his 10 professional wins. 3-Following his retirement from boxing Terao turned his hand to professional wrestling, wrestling in some independent Japanese organisations. Following this he moved into kickboxing and had some mixed success, including winning the UKF Japan Featherweight title. 4-In 2006 Terao took part in a cross code bout, using his kick boxing skills against a Masahiro Haneda, a karateka, in what was a rather weird bout which tried to combine the rules of the two sports. This didn't actually go very well for Terao who was dropped twice and made to look poor by comparison to Haneda. For those wanting to watch this it's been included below. 5-Currently Terao runs the Prebo gym, which is focused on personal training and fitness. He's currently a trainer and chairman of the gym. It's amazing to see how successful the Ohashi Gym have become in recent years, but it's hard to believe that they've not really been on the map for all that long, and aren't one of the more historical gyms. One of their first stars was Katsushige Kawashima. Although only really known in the west for his short reign as the WBC Super Flyweight champion, following an upset win over Masamori Tokuyama in their second bout, he's actually a really interesting fighter who proved doubters wrong and got to the top the hard way.
As Kawashima was only a short term champion, making only a couple of defenses, there is lots about him that has remained under the radar. With that in mind, let us bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Katsushige Kawashima 1-Kawashima went unbeaten in the amateurs, running up a less than extensive 1-0 (1) record in the unpaid ranks. 2-Unlike many fighters Kawashima wasn't actually inspired to fight after watching the sport on TV. Instead he was inspired after watching his friend fighting in 1995. His friend, an Ohashi gym fighter, got Kawashima to attend and it was there that he decided he wanted to box. 3-Surprisingly, given the fact he would later win a world title, Kawashima twice failed his pro-test. He was regarded as having no natural boxing ability, but being a genuine hard worker. 4-Kawashima's first loss as a professional came in the All Japan Rookie of the Year final in 1997. The man that beat him, Hitoshi Nakano, would later go on to win the OPBF and Japanese Flyweight titles! 5-In terms of nicknames Kawashima's most common one was "Last Samurai", though he was also dubbed "Lucky Man" 6-Kawashima's 1999 win over Napa Kiatwanchai saw him following his promoter, Hideyuki Ohashi, in beating the former Thai world champion. 7-When Kawashima won the WBC Super Flyweight title in 2004, stopping Masamori Tokuyama, he became only the second Japanese fighter to win a world title, whilst being managed by a former Japanese world champion, Hideyuki Ohashi. For those who are curious, the first was Keitaro Hoshino, who was managed by Susumu Hanagata. 8-The win over Tokuyama not only netted Kawashima the WBC Super Flyweight title but also saw him claiming the 2004 Best fighter award at the Japanese Boxing Awards and the Hochi Sports award for Boxing for that same year. 9-Kawashima fought with the initials "ST" sewn on his trunks after the death of a 17 year old Ohashi Gym trainee, from the 2000 Naka-Meguro derailment. 10-Since retiring from boxing Kawashima and his wife have run a jewellery business. The business sells original rings, not boxing ones, necklaces, pendants, bracelets, bangles and earrings, among other things. For those interested in the items they sell, the website can be found here https://ring-kawashima.com/ Once again we need to apologise for not having a full round to share in this edition of "Remarkable Rounds", but it's with good reason. The reason being that this is an action packed round that we doubt many have seen! It was short, but it was great and we had some tremendous back and forth before the ending came! The round had bombs from both men, and clean shots taken until one of the fighters was simply done. Shuichi Isogami (19-1-2, 13) vs Hitoshi Ishigaki (6-0, 5) For this round we head back to the summer of 1979 for a bout at Korakuen Hall between two men we don't expect many fans to be aware of. Despite that they managed to provide something a little bit special. Of the two men we suspect Shuichi Isogami is the more well known. Later in his career he managed to win the Japanese Bantamweight title, as well as fight for both the WBA and OPBF titles, losing to Jorge Lujan in a 1980 world title tilt. Coming in to this he was experienced on the Japanese domestic scene but lacked in terms of notable wins, with his best being against the likes of Go Mifune, Hurricane Teru, Yung Shik Kim and Yu Kasahara. Hitoshi Ishigaki was a novice at this point in his career and was taking a big step up. This was supposed to be his big step towards a Japanese title fight, a win here was supposed to advance him to that position. He had looked like a wrecking ball since starting his career but had there was a lot of questions over him coming into this bout. We won't go over what happened in the first 8 rounds, but instead, we'll plonk you at the start of round 9. From the opening seconds of the round Isogami was pressing but Ishigaki wasn't going to be giving up like that and after around 30 seconds he turned the tide, at least temporarily, as the two men took it in turns to be the boss. Isogami would then appear to take over, but was caught by bombs as Ishigaki fought back off the ropes. And then a huge left hook, from Isogami seemed to leave Ishigaki out on his feet, where he took another couple of clean shots. It was there that the referee stepped in. He ended the round early, but he had no choice. Ishigaki was done. One of the often spoke about things when it comes to predicting fights are results against shared opponents. That often forgets that styles make fights and that boxing isn't as simple as A beats B, and B beats C so A beats C. There are, through history, hundreds examples of this in play, sometimes in huge fights, sometimes in less fights and sometimes in the fights that fall somewhere between the two. Today we get to look at an example of that in what was one of the biggest upsets of 2016, and sadly one of the most forgotten upsets from the year. Date December 31st 2016 Venue Shimazu Arena Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan Yukinori Oguni (18-1-1, 7) vs Jonathan Guzman (22-0-0-1, 22) IBF Super Bantamweight champion Jonathan "Salomon King" Guzman had won the previously vacant title in July 2016, when he battered Shingo Wake into an 11th round TKO loss. The victory, in Osaka, was a massive win and a huge statement for Guzman, who proved he could travel to Japan and beat arguably their number #1 fight at 122lbs. He hadn't just beaten Wake but had legitimately smashed his face in, leaving Wake needing surgery and being a bloodied, messy pulp at the end of the bout. He returned to Japan in December to take part in one of the now hugely significant end of year shows, where he was going up against the once beaten Yukinori Oguni. Oguni was coming into his first world title bout. Prior to this he had held both the OPBF title and the Japanese title, both at Super Bantamweight. Although a skilled boxer, he lacked power, with just 7 stoppages in 20 bouts, and had suffered a notable stoppage himself to Shingo Wake. Yes, the same Shingo Wake that Guzman had battered for the IBF title just months earlier. It was assumed, doe to Oguni's lack of power, that Guzman would do the same to him as he had to Wake. Not only had Guzman stopped Wake but all 22 of his wins had come by stoppage. The Dominican was a feared fighter, and the only blotch on his record was an early career No Contest against Luis Hinojosa in 2013. Since then he had racked up 10 wins, including the one over Wake and one over the very decent Daniel Rosas. Those wins massively over shadowed Oguni's best wins, over Yasutaka Ishimoto, Taiki Minamoto and Roli Gasca. Going into the bout Oguni was priced as high as 10/1 with the UK bookmakers, whilst Guzman was 1/9 to win. This was seen as little more than a chance for Guzman to build his rpeutation and, on paper, score his 23rd stoppage win. This was supposed to be easy for the champion. Of course Oguni didn't read the script. He wasn't there to lose, he was there to become a world champion and quickly established his jab, used his reach and speed and tried to keep Guzman at range. Despite Guzman pressing, and certainly having power, he struggled to have any success in the opening round. He simply couldn't get close to Oguni for any prolonged success due to the challengers very crisp jab, the occasional follow up right hand. It wasn't until the bell to end the round that Guzman appeared to even have something to get excited about. Of course great fighters can often take the first round as a chance to scout their opponent, starting slowly, figuring their man out, and then put their foot on the gas. To his credit Guzman did step on the gas in round 2, but that didn't really help too much as once again Oguni, boxing and moving, continued to land the eye catching and consistent shots. He was tagging Guzman with consistent jabs, coming over the top with solid right hands and landing some very nice body shots. Defensively he was blocking a lot, but moving and making Guzman miss. The champion was trying to up the ante, but struggling to have success, and despite only being in round 2 looked like he was becoming a little bit desperate, but was having more success. Oguni stuck to his jab in round 3, though was starting to take more and more time in the middle of the ring. It was a change he was punished for, with Guzman going to work on him, though one that strangely worked in the end. As Guzman started to press and let his shots go, likely seeing an opportunity, Oguni landed a fantastic left to the body, and repeated it moments later, sending Guzman down. In an instant Guzman's momentum was stopped, and he spent much of the round trying to recover whilst Oguni looked land another to the midsection of the champion. What had been a good 90 seconds for Guzman, was turned on it's head by the knockdown, despite him easily beating the count. After just 3 rounds Oguni looked in control. He had, maybe, lost the second round, but with the good opening round and the knockdown in round 3, he had some breathing space. Guzman however wasn't there to lose and he came back well in round 4, to stop any possible momentum from Oguni. Despite that Oguni did land some solid body shots, trying to replicate the shot that had sent Guzman down the previous round, and landed a fantastic counter uppercut. Guzman took the shots in his stride however and tried to turn the bout into a fire fight. Oguni managed to re-establish some control in rounds 5 and 6 as he backed up Guzman, who again struggled to lane much clean. Guzman kept trying, but was falling show, whiffing at the air, and being pushed back by the clean accurate jabs of Oguni. That was until the end of round 6, when Guzman came close to stealing the round as picked up the pace on the bell and sent Oguni stumbling into the ropes. That momentum from Guzman carried over into a very good opening 2 minutes of round 7 for the champion who managed to have Oguni in trouble at one point. It seemed, for a moment, like the wheels were coming off Oguni until he landed another great body shot and had Guzman on his toes, scootching away and recovering. It was a genuinely great round, one of the best of the fight, and showed that Oguni, despite not being a puncher, could get Guzman's respect with a single well placed shot. In round 8 Oguni again went to the body of Guzman, and the champion didn't like it, backing up, going to the ropes, and looking for safety. Some how Oguni had gone from boxer using his jab, to a pressure fighter of sorts, imposing his will on a supposedly dangerous puncher. On the back foot Guzman looked really poor, and Oguni was starting to show just how Guzman hated to be bullied. Guzman, who was cut, was then inspected at the start of round 9. That was another round where Oguni's body shots really bothered Guzman, with one about a minute in landing in a way that would have dropped lesser men. Guzman has flashes in the round, but they were few and far between with Oguni taking the play away every time Guzman had some success. With his title slipping away Guzman likely went into round 10 knowing he needed to turn it around. Sadly for him he was on the wrong end of more Oguni body shots, almost doubling over at one point from them. He battled through though and ended up having a very good bounce back round, despite the poor start to it. By now however it was clear that Guzman's power simply wasn't effective Oguni as it had with Wake, and he was seemingly too tired, too broken down from the body shots, to keep up any intensity. In round 11 we again saw Guzman going to the canvas from body shots. The shot was ruled low by the referee, Eddie Claudio, though it was very clear on replay that the show was a clean one. Even disregarding what should have been a legitimate knockdown, Guzman looked a beaten man and was on the receiving end of one of the worst rounds of the fight. With the botched call from the referee Guzman was given recovery time, and he milked it, needing it. When the bout did continue Guzman was again on the back foot. Between rounds 11 and 12 a replay of the "low blow" was shown in the venue, and it made very clear the referee had made the wrong call. Regardless Oguni wasn't letting his chance slip and once again he backed up Guzman, made the champion miss, made his fight the wrong fight, and made the supposedly dangerous Dominican look scared and worried of the , supposedly, light punching Japanese challenger. After 12 rounds we went to the scorecards, and those backers of Oguni at 10/1 would have been delighted. He had put on a very surprisingly performance, out boxing, out punching, hurting and dropping the champion. Guzman wasn't embarrassed, but was clearly second best overall. That was shown on the cards which were 115-112 to Oguni from all 3 judges . Sadly for Oguni his reign was an under-whelming one. He had put in the performance of a life time here, ripped up the script, shattered the odds, but lost the belt just 9 months later to Ryosuke Iwasa. As for Guzman he would vanish for almost 2 years following this loss before returning with a decision win over journeyman Roberto Castaneda. Last Saturday we saw Japanese Lightweight Masayoshi Nakatani (19-1, 13) put in a career defining performance to stop the highly touted Felix Verdejo in one of the best comes of 2020. Nakatani, who was down twice, managed to break down and stop Verdejo late on, whilst a mile down on the scorecard, and had the performance of the weekend, by some margin.
Sadly he did suffer a nasty injury in that bout, which will keep him out of the ring for a while, but when Nakatani returns we suspect he'll be looking to build on that win and get his career moving forward towards an eventual world title fight. With that in mind we've decided to give Nakatani the "Five For" treatment this week, and look at 5 potential bouts that the elongated, Japanese Lightweight contender could be looking at for 2021. 1-Teofimo Lopez (16-0, 12) II The obvious one that will bring up a lot of interest for Nakatani would be a rematch with current WBA, WBO, IBF and WBC "Franchise" champion Teofimo Lopez. The two men fought in 2019 with Lopez taking a very hard fought decision over Nakatani, a decision that was much closer than the score-cards state. After that bout people raved about Nakatani, who soon retired before coming back to the sport this year, and really began to doubt Lopez. A rematch would give Nakatani a chance to avenge his sole loss, and fight for world titles, and would give Lopez a chance to put his first Nakatani bout down to "bad night at the office". There are, of course, more interesting, and some much easier, options for Lopez but this seems to be one that could well sell it's self. 2-Devin Haney (25-0, 15) If a bout with Lopez can't be made there isn't many options out there for Nakatani to get a world title fight, though the one existing option is a bout with WBC champion Devin Haney. This is a bout that we wouldn't be surprised to see getting rumoured a lot in 2021. Nakatani wants a world title fight, as mentioned already, and Haney needs a good dance partner after struggling to get notable names in the ring with him. With Nakatani coming in hot after the win over Verdejo, and with his performance against Lopez in 2019 he makes for the perfect opponent for Haney, and an opponent who lets Haney measure up against Lopez. The bout would also be one that could allow Haney to actually look exciting, taking on a man who is there to be hit, and will let his own shots go, something we haven't seen much of from Haney's last two opponents. If we were the ones advising Haney right now, this is the bout we would pursue for him. 3-Shuichiro Yoshino (13-0, 10) Nakatani is, right now, the hottest Japanese Lightweight, but yet he isn't the only Japanese fighter of note at 135lbs. Another is the OPBF, WBO Asia Pacific and Japanese champion Shuichiro Yoshino, who is currently ranked by all 4 world title bodies. This is perhaps the most obscure option out there, but to be the clear #1 in Japan, and to boost his world title opportunities this should certainly have some appeal to Nakatani. Likewise if you're Yoshino a win over Nakatani in Tokyo in 2021 would be huge for his career, and put him to a world title fight. It's really unlikely we'll see this one, but we'd be lying if we didn't say we'd love to see it headlining on a G+ card in the middle of next year, in a de facto world title eliminator, likely with the WBO. 4-Richard Commey (29-3, 26) We suspect Nakatani may become an avoided man at 135lbs given his win over Verdejo and how he ruined the opportunity of a Lopez Vs Verdejo bout. With that in mind it might make sense to match him with another avoided man, such as Ghana's Richard Commey, the former IBF champion. Commey, like Nakatani, is an awkward assignment for anyone in the division, and as a former champion he has some name value and a win over him means something. The bout should be relatively easy to make, for either the US or Japan, and could serve as a world title eliminator. For Nakatani the bout would be a real dangerous fighter, with Commey being a dynamite puncher, but the younger, fresher, less battle worn, and much taller, Nakatani should feel he has the tools to over-come Commey. 5-Denys Berinchyk (14-0, 8) Staying with the idea of Nakatani being an unwanted opponent, and perhaos needing to find another avoided man, a bout between the Teiken Lightweight and Ukrainian Denys Berinchyk could make a lot of sense, and would be a highly interesting fight. Not only would this be two men who are very much avoided, but it would also be a clash between two of the leading WBO contenders, potentially even a final eliminator, and a bout between two men who's styles are different but should gel. Nakatani, as we all know, is a relatively basic fighter, with awkward dimensions, a good jab and freakish size, whilst Berinchyk is an aggression, combination punching greinder. Put these in the ring together and we could end up with something spectacular, and see the winner put right up in line for a WBO title fight in late 2021. |
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