May sixth, chief support to Inoue vs. Neri at Tokyo Dome. WBA flyweight title at stake, 1st defense of Akui. When last they met it was for the JBC national 112lb title at "Phoenix Battle 79". Akui was victorious by TKO9 but the scorecards were very tight as of the stoppage (85-85 and 86-84 x2 for Akui). Both have been on strong runs of form since cleaning out some aging contenders from the Asian scene. Akui pitched a shutout against 39 year old countryman Takuya Kogawa, while Kuwuhara smote Wulan Tuolehazi via 4th round KO. Now then, let's talk nicknames. I'd like to publish a slight redaction to what I said during the RBR of his dominant victory over Artem Dalakian in January: His birth name is Akui Masago. (last name first) "Yuri" as it turns out actually is his ring name, and it's homage to Yuri Arbachakov, the Russian flyweight who fought in the 1990s and held the WBC title for 9 defenses (good for the longest uninterrupted reign between Miguel Canto's in the seventies and Pongsaklek Wonjongkam's in the aughts). Arbachakov himself bore two ring monikers: "The Russian Hitman", and "Yuri Ebihara", in fanboying homage to Hiroyuki Ebihara, the first world champion produced by Kyoei Gym where the foreigner Arbachakov trained for his entire pro career. A coach at Kyoei saddled Akui with it because of a supposed facial resemblance. I kinda see it... So that's all pretty interesting. But it doesn't hold a candle to Kuwuhara's alias' backstory. Well, the "Speedster" one is pretty self-explanatory. But the "Ioka 2.0"? He's literally called that by the Japanese media just because he coincidentally happened to attend both the same high school and college as Kazuto - and they're both pro boxers. That's all. So goofy. Especially considering that boxing is Kazuto Ioka's passion and birthright (with his uncle being a popular two division titlist) - whereas Kuwuhara doesn't even really like boxing. He was a devout karateka in childhood and his dream was to become a champ in K1 - but his dad saw the writing on the wall and figured Western prizefighting was more profitable, and made him pivot.
Oh yeah, and never forget that "yuri" (despite in this instance's contextually being a Russian name, a cognate of "George") means basically teen lesbo softcore in Japanese, the counterpart to yaoi.
Haha kind of strange not to mention Akui's domination of long-reigning champ Dalakian, right? I appreciate the effort you put into the nickname trivia though, I didn't know any of that. I'm gonna take Akui again. If it's not a repeat of the first one, Seigo has the better outboxing, and if it's another head to head body bashing slugfest, Yuri just has the better ingredients. Faster hands and more power. Should be a good scrap though- I really wouldn't be surprised either way.
Might want to reread. I literally mentioned that performance and hyperlinked the RBR for it before getting started on the nicknames.
Akui vs Kuwahara ended in the 10th round, not the 9th... The nickname backstory was really cool. Thanks, IB.
This content is protected The other two title fights are pretty interesting as well. Moloney vs an undefeated kickboxer trained by Akira Yaegashi & Little Inoue against Sho Ishida. IMO Ishida has a good chance to pull off the upset.
So it did... think I might've had a brainfart after rephrasing it from "stopped after nine close rounds" or something.
