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Leo Santa Cruz [33(18)-1(0)-1] may face a surprising opponent in his next fight.

The Mexican-American defeated Belfast’s Carl Frampton [23(14)-1(0)] in a WBA featherweight title rematch in Las Vegas back in January.

Negotiations for a decisive third fight would break down, with Santa Cruz being unwilling to travel to Belfast despite previously pledging to do so.

With that fight off the table, Santa Cruz was mandated to face WBA ‘regular’ titleholder Abner Mares in a rematch as part of the governing body’s commitment to ridding boxing of the largely-derided ‘regular’ belt situation.

Recent reports suggested that this fight was to take place in Los Angeles on September 9th, with Mares beginning a fight camp yesterday.


However, also yesterday, American-based Vietnamese contender Dat Nguyen [20(7)-3(0)] would claim on social media that he will face Santa Cruz on the Mikey Garcia v Adrien Broner undercard on July 29th – a card which also looks set to play host to Katie Taylor’s U.S. debut.

Nguyen, alongside the likes Frampton and Santa Cruz, is advised by influential Premier Boxing Champions backer Al Haymon.

The 34 year old has recently campaigned at super featherweight and scored a big upset win over Miguel Flores in his last fight back in February, scoring a sixth round stoppage.

Against his other two opponents of note, Luis Orlando Del Valle and Jayson Velez, the South East Asian boxer would fall to ten-round points defeats.

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http://www.irish-boxing.com/little-known-asian-boxer-claims-fight-leo-santa-cruz-next-month/

 

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WBA order Yafai Vs Ishida!
6/7/2017

Suguru Muranaka (25-3-1, 8) [村中 優] travel to England to battle against WBA Super Flyweight champion Khalid Yafai (22-0, 14). Although Muranaka came up short he did impress with his aggression and toughness and came out with a much improved profile from the bout.

Now it seems like Yafai is set to face a second sucessive Japanese challenger, with the WBA ordering the Englishman to have a mandatory against long term #1 contender Sho Ishida (24-0, 13) [石田 匠].

The camps of Yafai, who is promoted by Matchroom, and Ishida, who is promoted by Ioka Gym, have been given 30 days to agree terms for a fight before a purse bid will be called.

The bout could end up with either man having home advantange. Yafai is backed by the biggest promoter in the UK, if not Europe, and has Sky Sports behind him but isn't a huge draw at home, where fans don't tend to follow the lower weights. On the other hand Ishida has the backing of Japanese TV giant TBS, who have shown several of Ishida's recent fights and will likely be looking at having his world title fight on Japanese soil.

If Yafai does travel the bout will likely come on a double header with Ishida expected to feature alongside stablemate and current WBA Flyweight champion Kazuto Ioka (22-1, 13) [井岡一翔].

http://www.asianboxing.info/asian-news/wba-order-yafai-vs-ishida

 

Ryota Murata returns to the gym!

We are almost 3 weeks removed from the controversial WBA Middleweight title bout between Japan's Ryota Murata (12-1, 9) [村田 諒太] and Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam (36-2, 21), with the controversy resulting in two judges getting 6 month bans from the WBA.

In the wake of that bout Murata refused to immediately comment on his future, instead taking time away to rest and think about where he wanted to go in boxing, whether he could trust the sport and whether he wanted to pursue the WBA ordered rematch with N'Dam.

Today Murata finally returned to the gym, committing his future to the sport and statting that he wanted to fight top fighters. He didn't rule out the rematch with N'dam but he also didn't seem massively enthused by it either, and it seems clear he feels like the decision was terrible, and that he was the better fighter, but still learned from the contest.

At the Teiken gym Murata looked sharp, and although he has been spending a bit of time away from boxing he certainly looks to be hungry and in good condition. With that in mind we susect we'll see him in another big bout before the year is over, most likely the rematch with N'Dam.

 

Back in April we saw we saw Japanese youngster Shun Kubo (12-0, 9) [久保隼] claim the WBA Super Bantamweight title, as he scored a late stoppage win against veteran Nehomar Cermeno (26-6-1-1, 15), in what was a career defining victory for the unbeaten man.

Following that win his team revealed that his first defense would be against mandatory challenger Daniel Roman (22-2-1, 8), but they back then there was no set date or venue for the bout.

Today howver all the details for the bout were all revealed as the Shinsei Gym held press conference to public announce the bout.

The gym stated that the bout would take place on September 3rd at the Shimadzu Arena Kyoto, a relatively large venue which has held major shows in the past, including the Woz/Ioka show from New Years headlined by Kazuto Ioka.

Given the size of the venue and Kubo's relatively new status as champion it seems really hard to believe that there isn't another majorbout set to be announced for that card, possibly featuring a fighter from the Ioka gym in another title bout.

Kubo sounded confident of coming out with the win, but it's clear he has learned a lot form his bout with Cermeno and will be looking to improve his defense.

Also at today's press conference Shinsei announced that their fighter Ryuya Yamanaka (14-2, 4) [山中 竜也] would be challenging WBO Minimumweight champion Tatsuya Fukuhara (19-4-6, 7) [福原 辰弥] on August 27th at the Shiroyama Sky Dome. This bout had previously been announced by Honda Fitness, who promoter Fukuhara, but this press conference saw Yamanaka and Shinsei talk about their chances to win. There wasn't too much talk here, but Yamanaka sounded confident of the win, and hoped it would help Kubo, who's fight is only a week after Yamanaka's.

http://www.asianboxing.info/asian-n...d-title-against-daniel-roman-on-september-3rd

 

Wisaksil Wangek will face Roman Gonzalez in a rematch on 9 September card. And Juan Francisco Estrada/Carlos Cuadras and Naoya Inoue/Antonio Nieves will be on the undercard.

 

"Ryota Murata against the Brazilian guy, whom we are also promoting is the fight everyone wants to see, Falcao won a silver medal at the Olympiad in which Ryota Murata took the gold Murata won him with one point advantage, so it will be a great match- the Brazilians will fly to Las Vegas, there are already a lot of Japanese and plus, the Japanese will visit Vegas, arriving from Japan for the sake of the fight of Murata. Today, Todd Dubeuf is currently negotiating with guidance of MGM about this fight, "- said Arum. "I think that Murata has really improved since his professional career began, I am very, very happy about his progress, not only as a fighter, but as a person." I believe that Murata is approaching the availability of 45 sponsors for his fights, he is now the largest sports star in Japan and is known even more than baseball players.The population of Japan is a little more than 125 million people, and his last fight was viewed by 30 million in Japan. It's terrific. "

 

http://www.asianboxing.info/asian-news/donaire-and-frampton-make-weight

 

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