Headlining a Diamond Glove card on Fuji, rescheduled ten months from its original date. Japanese featherweight title on the line, Sagawa's third defense. Compelling match-up on paper, almost straight parity in the quality and quantity of their pro records. Each has lost once again ten victories, while the challenger (more popularly known by the name Hinata, with much ballyhoo surrounding his debut at 18 but with the hype since having somewhat cooled off) sports one draw on his.
(tbh I did fudge Sagawa's just a tad, as he doesn't afaik use that for a nickname but it actually is his title at his dayjob, at some French confectionery that's popular in Japan. Hinata, meanwhile - which I think a lot of fans in the West have always just assumed was part of his real name - translates literally into something like "reaching for the sunlight" but is widely used as slang for the flower, and is, although technically unisex, often used as the name of girl characters in anime)
Really puzzling over this one. Feel like Maruta would be the logical betting fave, but at the same time he was run close by Manangquil along with the Otake loss, and Sagawa's victory over his fellow Ryō (Matsumoto) is probably better than any of Yoshita's?
He also lost to Otake, which I didn't see, however the draw against Mananquil was a crock, @PinoyProdigy and I both had Maruta winning fairly wide. That result was actually perplexing.
I remember that one being divisive, yeah - @f1ght3rz and I had a huge fight about it actually. I had it a draw on first watch, then went back and had it 77-75 Maruta. I remember @PinoyProdigy saying he was the only person in kirk's thread who gave Manangquil a single round, which I remember struck me as wild.
