Masanori Rikiishi the betting favourite ahead of world title eliminator!

This coming Friday we'll see a WBC Super Featherweight world title eliminator as Japan's talented Masanori Rikiishi (14-1, 9) [佐藤政法] travels to Italy to face local fighter Michael Magnesi (23-1, 13), with both  shot at the WBC world title and the WBC Silver title on the line.
 
The bout will be Rikiishi's first outside of Japan, and historically Japanese fighters haven't travelled well, especially when travelling to Europe. Whilst there are exceptions to that rule, such as Naoya Inoue's famous win over Emmanuel Rodriguez in Scotland in 2019 and Toshiaki Nishioka's much less famous win against Mustapha Abahraouhi way back in 2005, they are very much few and far between. Despite that Nishioka is the betting favourite, best priced at 4/6 to win at some UK based betting websites.
 
Whilst he has been very impressive, especially in recent bouts with wins against Ricardo Nunez, Yoshimitsu Kimura, Tomjune Mangubat and Takuya Watanabe, Rikiishi has always been comfortable fighting in Japan, and not having a hostile environment working against him.
 
As for Magnesi, he is best priced at 3/2 with UK betting websites, who see him as the under-dog. That's despite the "Lone Wolf" fighting at home, in the administrative region of Lazio. In fact Magnesi only lives around 30 minutes from the venue of this fight. Not only is he at home, with his fans behind him, but Magnesi has also been noting notable wins recently, taking the unbeaten records of Ayrton Osmar Gimenez and Nike Theran in 2023. He also knows what fighting at home can do on the score-cards, with his sole loss being a rather thin decision in the UK to Anthony Cacace, who despite being Irish has regularly fought in the UK and was the promoters fighter.
 
The draw, for those curious is 18/1.
 
We'll admit we're genuinely surprised to see Rikiishi as the favourite here in what is a very, very tough fight on the road, for the brother of former world champion Masamichi Yabuki. Notably the winner is likely to need to go on the road, regardless of who wins, with the current WBC world champion being American O'Shaquie Foster, who will likely be able to bring the winner to the US for their mandatory show at the WBC title.