Kyotaro Fujimoto v.s Nobuhiro Ishida 4/30

You are not a Tanaka!

 

It may not be Ishida that has to worry about making it...

 

Why not?

Kyotaro was decent in kickboxing but never joined the elite, and is certainly a lesser boxer than kickboxer. His chin is okay but stylistically he is badly troubled when presented with taller men who aren't just useless mounds of pudgy inertia like Okello, Welliver or Kim...or 40-year-old, war-torn and ever more inconsistent Aerts in K1. Height coupled with active hands - that is, either countering him to check his aggressive rushes or coming forward and forcing him onto the backfoot and into the awkwardly suited role of counter-puncher - usually spells doom for him. (see: Haumono, Schilt who shut him out and rocked him down the stretch, Mousasi who effectively retired him from kickboxing despite being a K1 novice whose real calling is MMA, etc.)

Ishida has mostly campaigned 90lbs south of what Solomon Hamono generally weighs, but in matter of fact he enjoys the same height and reach advantage over Fujimoto, is the exact same age as Haumono, and is a vastly superior boxer. (not that Ishida is great, but Haumono is really very crude and is realistically not even top rate at the lowly Aussie domestic level...)

Ishida is a notorious front-runner (obviously the Kirkland blowout, his courageous start meeting Golovkin in center ring and banging away, his banking of most of the first half in his title loss to Rigo Alvarez where fading and coasting in the 2nd half cost him on the cards...) and Kyotaro might easily get overwhelmed early by his size and busy, educated hands. If he can weather the storm, it becomes a crap shoot as you must wonder a) how solid a punch either man can take from the other (neither is honestly a true heavyweight; Kyotaro if he began his career in boxing instead of K1 probably would have been a cruiser, if not light heavy...and he can be hurt...while of course Ishida was enigmatic in both his power and punch resistance down at 154 & 160lbs...standing up to big shots from Williams and Pirog, but hurt by lesser foes in Crazy Kim and Canelo's bro and KTFO by GGG...scoring precious few stoppages, but obliterating Kirkland in the blink of an eye, etc.) and b) whose stamina will hold up. Ishida as mentioned is a front-runner...but how much of his fading issues will be ameliorated with the extra weight? Or will they be worsened? As for Kyotaro, he spent the bulk of his combat sports experience topping off at three rounds...at the very most, four as needed for a tiebreaker in case of a draw under K1 rules. In boxing proper, Fujimoto has only twice gone ten rounds (or past seven) - against old .500 tomato can Takehara and old poorly conditioned Welliver.

To me this is a total pick 'em, and no one result would be any more shocking than another. :conf

Nobuhiro Ishida - former world fringe contender light middleweight and middleweight - holding the Japanese heavyweight title is no more of a freak show than it being held by Kyotaro Fujimoto - former good-but-not-great K1 titlist who lost when matched tough and didn't even take up the sweet science until Ishida had done it professionally for a decade and held a title (interim) already.

 

Ishiida's chin is pure granite. Fujimoto has faster hands than he does power, but if Ishiida was controlling range and making GGG work hard in the first rds, I just cant see Fujimoto having much of an advantage over Ishiida.

Now, Im not saying Ishiida is a top 50 HW, or that he's capable of contending at CW or LHW, but his chin, footwork and experience are head and shoulders above anything Fuji has faced outside Welliver who obviously has one of the greatest beards in HW history.:think

Crazy as it sounds.....Im taking Ishiida by close decision.:good

 

Oh yeah, I forgot the JBC are not allowing IIshida to contend for Kyotaro's belt.

Silly of them. Kyotaro being the national champ is equally a circus act.

If he is victorious they damn well better give him him a shot to lift it off Kyotaro in a rematch.

 

By no means pure granite. Sturdy yes, but he was occasionally hurt by inferior competitors long before getting KTFO by Golovkin.

He may have just as good if not better a chin at HW as Kyotaro...we shall have to wait and see.

 

So is this fight happening or not?????

Or is the JBC just taking the title out of the picture???

 

It will be non title. :-(

They made him jump through a hoop with the public spar. He jumped right through it, and they changed their mind on him. Completely unfair.

 

...that is assuming there is some kind of television outlet, and the JBC don't force them to box in a closed gymnasium with no audience or media. :!:

 

Yeah. :verysad

愚痴の息子!