Kazuto Ioka vs. Ryoji Fukunaga

NYE in Tokyo, we are keeping the flame of tradition! WBO super flyweight title at stake, 4th defense of Ioka.

Fukunaga is a late substitute for Jerwin Ancajas, with Ioka originally set for a unification match with the Filipino (who carries the IBF strap) before Japan's latest series of travel restrictions prompted by the Omicron variant. Fukunaga comes in with a deceptive record of 15-4 but is actually pretty decent, a strong & tough fighter who is the Japanese domestic and OPBF champ at super fly. He is also ranked #11 in the world by the WBO and WBC, and #8 by the IBF. He still would be hopeless against the red-hot version of Ioka that fought Tanaka one year ago, but might stand a better chance at playing banana peel if we get more akin to Ioka's tepid form in September versus Chihuas Rodríguez.

 

Airing live on trusty ol' TBS, btw.

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(you can retweet for a chance to win a poster signed by each fighter)

 

True but Chihuas isn't slick either; he stood in front of Ioka mauling & beating him up at times. Fukunaga isn't as good an overall fighter as Rodríguez but he probably does hit a bit harder, so I'm really hoping not to see Ioka soak up as much leather as he did a few months ago.

 

Well there is Erick "Mini Pacman" Rosa, but he's Dominican. There isn't a currently active Filipino nicknamed after their great countryman, but there used to be Florante Gusi "The Little Pacquiao" Condes Jr. until he retired about 6 years ago.

Funfact: in addition to his more famous "Knockout CPF" moniker, the WBA straw champ Thammanoon Niyomtrong is known domestically as "Little Pacquiao" ...which is equally ill-fitting. (although I think based more on his legitimate facial resemblance, which makes sense...because stylistically they're nothing alike, Niyomtrong isn't a southpaw, and he's less than half as powerful as Manny p4p)

 

Fine, just rain on my parade!

(probably not wrong though)

 

Speaking of raining on parades, everybody get ready to set your alarm for holyshitwtfbbq o'clock, because this is going down at 6:30pm local time in Tokyo - not 6:30am EST as I'd expected and hoped.

(6:30pm JST = 4:30am EST . Normal time for Japanese cards is a couple hours later, which is a reasonable time for us beikokujin to get up...so at first I thought maybe this was just the undercard start time, but on the programming lineup on TBS' website it lists a timeslot of just 18:30-19:40 with something called Demons vs. Humans set to air immediatelly following...)

 

Weigh-in will be live here tomorrow night at 11pm EST:

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(which is 1pm on Thursday afternoon JST)

 

36 year old grizzled veteran and former (twelve years ago) national lightweight champ Akihiro Kondo looks to stem off a 1-3-1 skid in the may-or-may-not-be-televised co-main event, taking on young Aso Ishiwaki.

Here is the latter - in the dark hair and dark shoes, getting stopped by Jin Sasaki a year ago in a bid for the vacant Japanese super lightweight youth title:

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And here is Kondo's draw a few days later with Daishi Nagata:

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Could be fun, hopefully aired.

 

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