In ~48 hours in Bangkok. The vacant WBA international flyweight title (previously held in 2019 by Tuolehazi with two successful defenses) will be on the line. This is a must-win for both contenders, with the Japanese challenger posting a middling 2-2-1 record over the last half-decade and the Kazakh-Chinese incumbent having seen three solid years of momentum dashed by a knockout loss to Kōsei Tanaka in 2019. A common opponent, Tanaka had beaten Kimura by MD the year prior to defend the WBO flyweight title. Stakes here do not include angling for a rematch with Tanaka for either man, however. The Monster of Chukyo has migrated up to super fly, and Wednesday's winner will instead be positioned to challenge whoever is WBA champ when the dust settles from Artem Dalakian vs. David Alejandro Jiménez Rodríguez on Saturday. The loser faces an uphill climb toward contention, if not rumination over retirement, with Tuolehazi being 29 and flirting with a less than 75% rate of victory overall and Kimura being a hard-ridden 34. Kimura is a former WBO champ having toppled his opponent's countryman and Olympic gold medalist Zōu Shìmíng in 2017. He's an inch taller and two inches longer, and packs more of a punch, but has a fuller "bump card" and lots more wear on his treads despite having turned pro just two years before Tuolehazi. As for the defending WBA international flyweight champ, his profile on Baike.com (which is sort of what China uses instead of Wikipedia) is nothing short of hilarious; there is an entire section heading for "Character evaluation" (as in, his in-ring character, or style/attributes) with just a single paragraph. In fact, just one brief sentence. It follows: "Wulan Tuolehazi's technique is not very proficient, especially the accuracy is lacking, but he has a dense punching frequency." That's it. Fin. There's a even a citation referenced. Love it, zero notes. The whole card will be streamed live free on the promoter's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/highlandboxinggym (as well as on their YouTube channel, allegedly)
If this was the 2017/18 version of Kimura, I would have no problem picking him to smash Wulan. Problem is Sho hasn't anything remotely decent ever since the Tanaka defeat.
Exactly. He's clearly the better fighter all-around prime for prime, but is shot enough to make this unpredictable and interesting.
Wow, surprised I hadn't seen this. Great fight. Rooting for the Tainshan Snow Leopard but expecting Kimura to get the KO.
I know. That's why I phrased it as "flirting with", as in "should he lose to Kimura". That would push him to 15-5-1, meaning over a quarter of his bouts are blemishes (if you view any non-wins as such and lump draws in with losses, as some do)
Check out this shredded little absolute unit in the co-main: https://boxrec.com/wiki/images/f/f8/Lequanwang.jpg If he devoted just a tenth as much time doing pec flies as he clearly does working those arms, shoulders and traps he'd be among the most truly well-rounded swole welterweights I've seen in ...a while.
He was knocked out for the count in his pro debut, a decade ago this coming April. Since then he, to my knowledge, is yet to ever leave his feet.
