Note: this is taking place on Thursday morning (for Americans, late afternoon into evening local time in Tokyo), but the broadcast on Fuji will be tape delayed 2.5 days, until Sunday. To be precise, at 3:35am JST, which is 1:35pm EST (and 'half six' GMT, using the Brits' vernacular). Korakuen Hall. OPBF bantamweight title at stake, Kurihara's second defense. True to his nickname (which may in fact have originated during his high school baseball career, I'm not entirely sure), Kurihara is a live-and-die by the sword sort. 13 of his 15 victories and 3 of his 5 losses by stoppage. Inoue is of course the kid brother of Naoya. While he is absolutely no Monster, he isn't BobPac to his Manny either. He is coming off a fourteen month layoff since losing a world title bid against fellow unbeaten Nordine "Shining Jewel" Oubaali, pre pandemic.
Btw, not that it's really relevant here since this isn't airing live - but the reason, I recently read, that we're seeing so many early cards in Japan (like Ioka vs. Tanaka last month) is due to new Covid restrictions that do not permit any sports events - at least indoors - to stretch past 8pm.
So basically nobody look on BoxRec or Twitter (if you follow AsianBoxing et al) if you want to avoid result spoilers and jump into my RBR on Sunday with virginal eyes.
Partially true, those restrictions apply to Tokyo Metropolitan and 3 nearby prefectures... But that's ONLY just kicked in and has no link to the Boxing Day and NYE shows. Ioka VS Tanaka didn't want to lose audience to other big events (NHK have an audience killer on NYE, TBS smartly put Sasuke on Dec 29th to not ruin there audience there). The NHK event draws around 40% of TV viewership, RIZIN got around 7%, Ioka VS Tanaka got around 10% The show on Saturday (Nagahama vs Toyoshima) has been affected by the new rules though
Ah, thanks for the clarification. So this one, if they were airing it live, would be subject to restrictions and on super early, right? Here's what I don't get: why, of all times, if they're gonna delay it, would they choose the wee hour of 3:35am local???
First couple of votes are split one apiece for Kurihara by stoppage and Inoue on points - and that's pretty much the book on this one. If there were an 'either of those outcomes' betting option, that'd be giant flutter worthy.
Q1- Basically to have fans in the venue the event needs to finish by 8PM. This is scheduled to begin at 6PM (per JOSC) but I suspect it will begin a little earlier, as they have 2 bouts of 6 rounds, 1 bout of 8 round and 1 bout of 12 rounds, to get through. The is regardless of TV, just a rule for having fans in a venue in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba or...Saitama I think. Q2-Fuji TV and TBS always put their tape delay stuff on at stupid O'clock (from 2am to 3:40am) makes no sense and some promoters, including Kadoebi have spoke out about the stupid times. Japanese TV isn't as simple as some assume either, and when Rentaro Kimura recently had his bout shown on Fuji it wasn't even shown in his home town! - A further frustration of promoters. The only LIVE TV content in Japan now a days are world title bouts or G+ shows, and has been for a couple of years. Thank god G+ is available on iSakura. I think they are partially why Japanese promoters have started to go to streaming (A-Sign have been great for this and Shinsei as well). It's ****ing stupid and totally indefensible, though I assume it's down to a set aside time slot for "sport content".
So besides the NYE shows TBS isn't ever live anymore? I miss the old days...even with the crap ass quality and disconnects on KeyHole, it was nice to be able to get up early, put on a pot of coffee and flip between several (or, at least a couple of) channels showing live Japanese boxing head to head before a catnap and gearing up for the British/Euro stuff later in the day and then capping off a nice little pugilistic Friday or Saturday with FNF, or HBO and/or Showtime. Ahh, nostalgia..
TBS will go live if/when Higa gets a world title fight or when Ioka next defends in Japan It SEEMS like their deal with Watanabe gym is either over, or on the rocks (Kyoguchi was set to stream his fight with Simsri himself) - though of course if someone like Shigeoka, Kuga, Taniguchi wins a world title there's a chance that will change. Fuji will do live broadcasts if Inoue or Murata defend their titles in Japan, they MAY also do live for Ken Shiro (though that's currently unclear - and the now abandoned Hisada bout was set to be an a Fuji sister channel). NTV MAY begin to do live broadcasts IF Junto Nakatani can build on his title win. TV Tokyo are out of the boxing game Thankfully we have G+, A-Sign, Boxing Raise, Boxing Real, TV Osaka (online only) all showing some live content ...in fact all of those did at least 1 live show in the final 2 months of the year. TBS will continue to run "Guts Fighting" - their delayed coverage, and Fuji are now regularly showing 2 tape delay broadcasts a month, one under the Diamond Glove banner (promoted by Misako) and one under the Phoenix Battle tag (promoted by Ohashi). Boy have I taken this off topic. Sorry!
Eh, only a bit and I did ask in the first place - and everything is very helpful and informative so thank you!
So to be clear: there are zero ways (maybe a regional feed, Facebook stream from promoter, etc) that I could do an actual live RBR of this one on Thursday, short of commissioning a private roundtrip-to-Japan jet and either buying a ticket or sneaking myself and my laptop into Korakuen?
Yes. And doing the round a jet one would leave you in quarantine before you'd get to the venue >_> Do a live RBR for Toyoshima Vs Nagahama on Friday/Saturday I'll sort you a feed for that one!