Does this mean Ioka feels he is ready for Roman now? Or is he going to take the beta WBA & wait for Roman to move to 115...They did that in 105 & 108. Ioka is no longer a prospect now so I hope we see the fight happen
I'd assume he realises he's between a rock and a hard place. If he stays at 108 he'll have Naoya Inoue breathing down his neck like a ***ual deviant wanting to make Ioka his "lady friend" where as at 112 he can avoid that fight being spoken about, for now, and try and pick up the the scraps of the Kogawa/Yodmongkol bout
Is it accepted in Japan that Inoue > Ioka, this explains the move up in weight Especially in Japan they can't easily co-exist as WBA seems to be the default championship there
It's not accepted there but Inoue is certainly taking the shine off of Ioka's achievement of winning a world title in 7 bouts. Ioka seemed to want a unification bout a few weeks ago though is now happy to skip up a division or two. The WBA and WBC titles are the two that matter in Japan though I think the IBF are happy to open doors at the moment in the hope of being accepted over there. Expect to see the WBO follow suit soon as well with more and more eliminators and title fights happening over there as the organisations look for more repsect from the fans.
Ioka gym seems to be struggling this year. Nakatami scored a major win in January but since then, well nothing. All the other gyms are making big fights and it seems Hiroki Ioka is just twiddling his thumbs
Ioka won't fight Gonzalez, more likely he tries to get Amnat and make the Thai an offer he can't refuse.
No fight lined up Matt. Widely said that he wants a world title fight later this year though. Yaegashi was obviously linked to him but is booked up for his next 2 fights anyway. Tough division and I dare say a silly move.
