Saturday at Korakuen Hall; G+. OPBF welterweight title at stake, Nagahama's first defense. Strikingly, they have identical records to a statistically improbable degree - both exactly 12-2-1 (with four kayos for the champ and eight for the challenger). Nor is that all they have in common - both cite Gennady Golovkin as their boxing idol. So that's auspicious. re: Nagahama's moniker, I sort of had to stretch it as the native Japanese is sort of untranslatable ("Atto" meaning "in a surprising way"), so I found a near enough colloquial equivalent in English. As for Toyoshima, his self-chosen nickname is kind of disappointingly boring considering his diverse eclectic interests (anime fan, model/toy hobbyist, car and dirtbike enthusiast, yogurt and kebab junkie, dabbler in kickboxing..)
Toyoshima's last bout*, versus Masafumi Ando: This content is protected *in this sport, anyway. He only fought in kickboxing in 2020. Nagahama's penultimate bout*, versus Fumisuke Kimura: This content is protected *his fight eleven months ago with then unbeaten Kudura Kaneko isn't available anywhere I can find.
I'm leaning heavily towards Atto. Despite having more stoppages in the same number of assignments, Brave's pair of losses were against much lower caliber (both of his against the same guy, now 7-2; meanwhile Nagahama succumbed to Yuki Nagano and Takeshi Inoue, both very respectable) and he's also giving up a lot of reach and technical skill.
RE - Nagahama Vs Kaneko The full fight is on Boxing Raise (so Asian Boxing and associated channels won't put it on Youtube). Strange that Toyoshima fought a kickboxing bout in 2020, wonder if it's a fighter with the same name as the JBC REALLY get pissy about that sort of thing
Could be, but he does cross-train regularly in both disciplines and his IG is littered with kickboxing vids. Oh, are BoxingRaise videos in a format that's embeddable on here, or nah?
If tit was THIS fight - This content is protected It was from 2012 (before he was a JBC license holder) but was uploaded in 2020...still not sure if it's the same Toyoshima though Boxing Raise is behind a paywall, so can't really embed them anywhere sadly.
Bunch of Nagahama fights This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected (I suspect Taka left that Jpg on purpose... Filthy chap)
Toyoshima videos This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
Yeah I'm a little scared to vote on this one. Hesitant and leaning towards Toyoshima but as you said, too close to call.
