The boxing news has been changing daily, if not hourly, with new Covid-19 restriction loosing up, new states are opening up and boxing looks like 2021 might be on track towards a successful year. February 3rd in Japan a press conference was held announcing Japanese treasure, Naoya Inoue—WBA Super, IBF and Ring Magazine bantamweight champion will participate in a exhibition match February 11th and will be held as a charity event called "Legend" at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo Japan. Naoya's opponent will be announced at a later date.
On this day at the presser, 6 Fights on the undercard were announced.
1. Yaegashi Higashi Vs Hiroto Kyoguchi 2. Sho Kimura Vs Yuki Takei
3. Takashi Uchiyama Vs Akinori Saka
4. Andy Hiraoka Vs Daisuke Narimatsu 5. Takeshi Inoue Vs Masato Moriwaki 6. Zushi Sasaki Vs Okazawa Theon
As for the event, it will essentially be a champion exhibition fight featuring 6 bouts, with 3 rounds in each and each round consisting of 3 minutes. Fighters will be wearing head gear and the discussion of glove sizes will also be discussed by the fighters participating.
Yaegashi Higashi the 38 years old former 3 division world boxing champion with a record of 28 Wins—16 of those by knockout and 7 losses—retired in 2019. Higashi was a former WBC flyweight champion, IBF world light flyweight champion, most notably he fought superfly WBC champion Roman Chocolatito Gonzalez in 2014 after losing to world champion Kazuto Ioka after only 18 professional fights who was only 9-0 in his first defense of the WBA world minimum-weight title. Hiroto" The Dynamite Boy" Kyoguchi is the 27 years old youngster and also happens to be the 2 division World Champion, holding both the WBA super world light flyweight, Ring light flyweight title, and former IBF mini-flyweight title received in 2017. He's also scheduled to make his USA debut on March 13th in Dallas Texas. A Matchroom/ DAZN promoted card defending his current title against min-flyweight stepping up in the game Axel" El Mini" Vega from Mexico fighting out of Los Angeles, California with Compton Boxing Club "El Mini" is known for his fast hard hitting hands and brutal knockouts.
The same card is a triple-header with title fights starting with superfly duo Estrada "El Gallo" vs Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez and the much anticipated rematch of WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO title fight between former champion Cecila Braekhus (36-1-0) only loss to 2020 break out star Jessica McCaskill (9-2-0) with only 11 bouts under her belt, she took on the former champ in Oklahoma this past August beating her with all odds stack against her. Will she be able to do it again? This rematch is needed for the former champion Braekhus because she wasn't able to retire which she stated she had planned to do before multiple fight offers were made as the rise of women's boxing trended in the Uk helped along of course by promoter Eddie Hern on which Matchroom card they fought on in 2020.
The 32 year old former WBO world flyweight champion Sho Kimura (19-3-2) coming off a fight with the former champion Tanaka—at the time was undefeated—who recently lost his title to a talented world champion and one of my favorite boxers out of Asia Ioka (25-2-0) on Dec.31st. This past year of 2020, Ioka faced harsh backlash from the Japanese Boxing Commission and currently awaiting punishment for not covering his tattoos. The old sacred rule from when tattooing in Japan was outlawed and/or prohibited and even today is looked at as rebellious. Kimura will face Yuki Takei the 8 year younger former K-1 World GP super bantamweight champion.
Andy “Justice" Hiraoka (16-0-0), 24 years old half Japanese Half Ghanaian (Ghana) super lightweight from Yokohama Kanagawa Japan, ranked number 5 in Japan, and remains undefeated with 16 professional fights. The southpaw has now fought twice in the United States both times in Las Vegas, Nevada as part of "The Bubble" with Top Rank Promotions. The relatively unknown fighter outside of Asia, Hiraoka has been on a fast track since he started in Japan racing through his first 6 performances in Asia and boldly moving to Las Vegas to train under Rodger Mayweather at The Mayweather Boxing Gym but returned to Japan after only a couple months in the US. Back in Japan he started working together with “Manager to the Stars” (Well in Japan) and former two-time world titleist Hideyuki Ohashi who, incase you didn't know, manages a slew of fighters in Japan including the Inoue Brothers and multiple others. In December 2020 Ring Magazine featured him as a New Faces 2020 Prospect after his first fight on Top Rank in November 2019 on the undercard of Adames vs Teixeira ended in a TKO stoppage in the 2nd round. Then was featured on the undercard in Las Vegas of the current bantamweight world champion Naoya Inoue when he returned on Halloween to unify titles. America was watching and took note of Andy The Blade/Justice Hiraoka. Facing Hiraoka is Daisuke Narimatsu is a 31 years old boxer who represented the country of Japan for the national team in Tokyo and attended the Rio Olympics in 2016 losing to well known American fighter/Olympian Karlos "King" Balderas 9-1-0 in the lightweight division. Narimatsu has been training since 2005 and currently resides in Waco City and has an extremely colorful amateur background in boxing and trained at the Japan Self-Defense Forces Physical Training School. Tokyoite Takeshi Inoue the Super Welterweight age 31 promoted by World Sports is ranked 2nd in Japan with a record of 17 wins 1 loss and 1 draw. His only loss was suffered by an unanimous decision against GoldenBoy's Mexican super-welterweight star Jaime Munguia in January 2019 at 22. But he returned in August of 2019 to fight and capture the vacant WBO Asia Pacific super welterweight championship. He has only been fighting professionally for 6 years and in no relations to the “Monster” super star Naoya Inoue. Inoue is fighting Masato Moriwaki a 24 years old who is currently promoted by The Japan Self Defense Force Physical Education School, and was on the Tokyo Olympics Japan national team (Middleweight division).
Tomorrow I will continue blogging about these two fights left on the card
Takashi Uchiyama is the former WBA World Super Featherweight Super Champion vs
Akinori Saka is the Japan Super Featherweight Champion
Zushi Sasaki 19yr old from Hachioji Nakaya, and the current Japanese Super Lightweight Youth Champion
vs
Okazawa Theon 25 years old promoted by Kagoshima Prefectural Athletic Association, and is a Tokyo Olympic Welterweight Japan representative
Information on Presser in Japanese https://www.bbm-japan.com/amp/article/detail/14309?__twitter_impression=true The Ring Article about Prospect Andy Hiraoka New Faces https://www.ringtv.com/478541-new-faces-andy-hiraoka/
