Omar Figueroa vacates - Jorge Linares vs Hank Lundy?

Linares CAN'T fight Ao (at least in Japan) due to a domestic JBC rule (I can go into detail if you really want).

Linares Vs Lundy would be TERRIFIC! I'd pick Linares but it's a coin toss.

 

x2

 

Okay.

In the west, as you know, the promoter and gym aren't related. For example you have Top Rank and Golden Boy fighters both at the Garcia Gym and the Wild Card gym.

In Japan they use a different system and the JBC enforce a licensing system with the gyms. A boxer is licensed to the gym and the gym is typically also a promoter. Be it Teiken, Watanabe, Ohashi, Ioka, Kadoebi, Green Tsuda, Misako, Celes (etc) every Japanese licensed fighter is licensed to that gym and every gym it's self is licensed

No Gym is allowed to pit 2 of it's fighters against each other. I assume, though I'm not certain, that it's to stop things like the in house bull we see from Top Rank/Goldeboy/Frank ****** and instead it FORCES promoters to work together.

Hence you'll never see Ao fight Linares (both Teiken), or Inoue fight Yaegashi (both Ohahsi) or Ioka fight Ryo Miyazaki (both Ioka) or Kotatsu Takehara fight Okello Peter (both green/Midori).

This licensing is useful for a number of reasons. As mentioned above it forces promoters to work together, it makes it easy to punish "bad gyms" (hence the Kameda gym being closed) and it holds gyms accountable for their fighters.

Fighters ARE ALLOWED to transfer gyms but usually the gym they are going to needs to pay a transfer fee to the JBC and to the original gym. This stops one gym from building a fighter only to have another one pinch them as they are about to reach the top. A notable transfer in recent times was that or Takashi Miura who went to Teiken from Yokohama Hikari in 2011. Another notable transfer was Tomomi Takano who went to Kyoei last year.

In the specific case of Linares and Ao they seem to be good friends as well as stable mates.

Hope that all makes sense.

Also one thing to add, at the moment there are a few peculiar cases. For example Ryota Murata is a Misako fighter though has his matches made by Teiken I think similarly Shingo Wake is a Koguchi fighter though has the backing of Kyoei (I have a feeling that Koguchi is pretty much a sister gym of Kyoei like Teiken has Osaka Teiken but I'm not certain on that).

 

I got det. lundy by KO.

 

My interest in Figueroa vs. Linares would have been, eh, 6.5 out of 10 maybe. My interest in Linares vs. Lundy? Maybe 3.5 out of 10.

 

2014 Post of the Year

Thanks man...

 

Tough one to call.

Reckon Linares stops him

 

Always enjoy sharing the different "boxing cultures". I tend to feel the JBC have got a lot of forward thinkers but with Japan being quite a compact country (in terms of where fights are held) I doubt the same sort of control could be run in other places (especially the US).

Another country worth noting is Thailand, they have televised mismatches week after week after week, if a US fan was in Thailand they'd never watch the sport despite it being on free to air TV.

 

Thailand: Home of the 87-3-2 records.

 

Thailand, the home of active fighters, massive mismatches and boxing "as a job". For every record like Sirimongkol and Pongsaklek there is someone like who is 12-13 or some international (Filipino/Indonesian) journeyman willing to take an ass whooping on 3 days notice just to collect a pay day and get food.