Andy Hiraoka to face either Jin Sasaki or Kaiki Yuba for Japanese title!
June was a funny old month for the Japanese title at 140lbs! Early in the month we saw Masahiro Suzuki (6-0, 4) [鈴木 雅弘] score a TKO win over Daishi Nagata (15-3-2, 6) [永田大士] to claim the title, and soon afterwards it was announced that fellow unbeaten Andy Hiraoka (17-0, 12) [平岡アンディ] would get a shot at the title as the mandatory challenger. Rather than planning that fight however Suzuki and his team stated what was pretty obvious, Suzuki wasn't a Light Welterweight and instead of staying at 140lbs he announced he was going to vacate the title and compete at his natural weight class, 135lbs.
That left us with a vacant title and a mandatory contender for the title, in Hiraoka, but no opponent for the unbeaten Ohashi and Top Rank promoted youngster.
Today we found out who Hiraoka would be fighting for in that eventual title fight. Or rather we found out he would be up against one of two men!
That's because it was announced today that Hiraoka's Japanese title fight will come against the winner of the July 17th Youth title bout between Jin Sasaki (10-0, 9) [佐々木尽] and Kaiki Yuba (7-0-2, 5) [湯場海樹], who clash at the Fujimori Gymnasium in just over 2 weeks time. The winner is then expected to face Hiraoka in the fall, with a September date seeming the most likely for the bout.
It was also confirmed today that the Sasaki Vs Yuba bout would be streamed live on A-Sign Boxing's YouTube channel, and it appears likely that the eventual Japanese title bout will be shown live on pay TV service Hikari TV, which is sadly only available in Japan.
Whilst Suzuki's reign was disappointing it's great to see both Sasaki Vs Yuba, and the winner of that against Hiraoka, and that's the type of excitement the Japanese scene at 140lbs really deserves, especially given that all 3 are exciting, hard hitting youngsters, wanting to boost their careers in a big way.
That left us with a vacant title and a mandatory contender for the title, in Hiraoka, but no opponent for the unbeaten Ohashi and Top Rank promoted youngster.
Today we found out who Hiraoka would be fighting for in that eventual title fight. Or rather we found out he would be up against one of two men!
That's because it was announced today that Hiraoka's Japanese title fight will come against the winner of the July 17th Youth title bout between Jin Sasaki (10-0, 9) [佐々木尽] and Kaiki Yuba (7-0-2, 5) [湯場海樹], who clash at the Fujimori Gymnasium in just over 2 weeks time. The winner is then expected to face Hiraoka in the fall, with a September date seeming the most likely for the bout.
It was also confirmed today that the Sasaki Vs Yuba bout would be streamed live on A-Sign Boxing's YouTube channel, and it appears likely that the eventual Japanese title bout will be shown live on pay TV service Hikari TV, which is sadly only available in Japan.
Whilst Suzuki's reign was disappointing it's great to see both Sasaki Vs Yuba, and the winner of that against Hiraoka, and that's the type of excitement the Japanese scene at 140lbs really deserves, especially given that all 3 are exciting, hard hitting youngsters, wanting to boost their careers in a big way.