Kazuto Ioka vs. José Francisco Rodríguez Tamayo & Yuichiro Kasuya vs. Aso Ishiwaki RBR

Ioka should chase greatness/immortality and go monster-hunting.

 

Cool as that would be, I've seen nothing before this fight (let alone the fight itself) that suggests moving up would be a good idea, especially since there are legay fights aplenty in the weight division now that he is FINALLY FREE FROM MANDATORIES (****ing WBO...)

 

The Little Three (R-Gon, JFE, SSR) are all varying degrees of shot, so they'd be nice feathers, but not legacy-defining.

Ancajas is very meh. Nietes — is he still a boxer?

Inoue is a mere 3 pounds north, but can send Ioka into boxing immortality with a win.

 

Ancajas could be a big problem, but the truth is we don't know. He's not exactly been tested against the best, and in some ways is the very definition of a 'belt holder'. He could freeze up against the first "real" world-class opponent he faces in this division.

 

Ioka's not exactly a spring chicken himself. All four are varying degrees of "Not good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was." They are still good fights to make that will be wildly entertaining, and the reputations will most certainly be legacy-defining as the one who came out of left field and FINALLY answered the question 'who's the man at super-flyweight?"

I agree that Ancajas is more unknown than anything else, but he has a belt and it puts Ioka one step closer to undisputed, which itself is legacy-defining in this 4 belt, "let's all avoid each other" era. And Nietes is still a boxer, having fought as recently as the Herring/Frampton undercard not so long ago. Ioka would most definitely love to run it back and get that rightful W.

It could also send him to the morgue, and at this stage I know which of those two options are more likely.