His skills are not immaculate - they're just "overall pretty good" ...but the good news for him is that same descriptive applies to his current surroundings: the landscape at flyweight. The divisional #1 is his stablemate Kōsei Tanaka (who just dismantled a very game but markedly slower and less versatile Ryōichi Taguchi over 12 in a WBO title defense) - but underneath "Dream Boy" things are pretty wide open, with no clear slots easily filled in a h2h top five, and loads of parity all the way down through 15 or even 20. If he pursues the WBC path he is ostensibly traveling (earlier today making a gritty war-of-attrition defense of his Youth title against plucky Siamese teenager and former internationally successful amateur Songsaeng Phoyaem) his quest for the green belt points him, at present, in the direction of Charlie Edwards. That isn't an inconceivable ask for Hatanaka - but the problem is getting there. Edwards' mandatory is Andrew Selby, and the flyweight ranked 15th by the WBC is the always dangerous Luis "El Nica" Concepción. So the climb is arduous...but doable for a hard-punching gung-ho warrior using offense as defense and boasting a decent chin...
Hell, if his ambitions were to partially unify (never mind just grabbing a belt) I'm not sure his ceiling would preclude that, as the IBF and WBA champions - Mthalane and Dalakian respectively - are good but hardly unbeatable. The only stylistic matchup I'd be very worried about, were I put in the shoes of Kiyoshi Hatanaka (father of Kento and promoter of both him and Tanaka) would be Kōsei...but a) they wouldn't fight each other and b) Kōsei has mooted a jump up to super fly..
@Boxing Prospect @Chuck Norris @PinoyProdigy @CST80 (as soon as you manage to watch the Phoyaem match)
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@IntentionalButt I couldn't find the match fro the Tanaka undercard, but I watched the first three that I posted above. Holy ****, this kid is magical, he might be my new favorite fighter, no bull****. I find him captivating to watch, if I were to build the perfect fighter it might end up coming out as Hatanaka. He almost reminded me of Kovalev, only a slightly more arrhythmic staccato Japanese boy/droid version, yet still retains a metronomic quality. He's brilliant. His punch selection, footwork, stunning jab, combinations, hand speed are immaculate. I love him.
Yeah, apparently CBC trimmed down the original live broadcast video from their YouTube channel from its original 4 hour length to just the main event, such BS... and I even did a search for Hatanaka's name in Japanese katakana but yeah, there is no alternate footage source. Hopefully the CBC releases the undercard bouts as separate uploads, because you would love the Phoyaem battle. The young Thai pushed him and made him dig to find a new level. His defense suffered a bit as it wore on but somehow I don't reckon you'll mind the impact that had on the fight.
Firstly Japanese rules prevent stablemates fighting, and neither is likely to change gyms, which is actually owned by Kento's father Kiyoshi Hatanaka (former world champion himself), so we can forget about them fighting. In terms of the Japanese scene he's a prodigy but not sure how he matches up domestically with Yamauchi, Kuroda, Nakatani, Kogawa. A lot of room for him to grow. Again going on to Japanese rules, but for a Japanese fighter to fight for a world title at home they need to have first EITHER have shown examplary amateur pedigree (we're talking Olympic/World Amateur medals) and be exempt from the usual rule, OR have won a JBC or OPBF title (or WBO Asia Pacific if the title you're challenging for is a WBO title) OR they will have to fight abroad. So I suspect the climb for Tanaka will be 2021/2022 before a world title fight (giving him a chance to claim a national or regional title before anything higher. By then the landscape will be very different IMO
Since he's chummy with them, hopefully AsianBoxing can put in a request for it. As far as the leaky defense goes, I saw a glimpse of it i the Phosisong fight, I'm intrigued, I'd like to see just how leaky it is when he's pushed.
There's a petition. https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...aeng-phoyaem-rbr.626004/page-10#post-19733371
