Boxing News Boxing News
The big mid-week action of August’s last days takes place Wednesday night at Nihon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan with the both the WBA bantam and super flyweight titles at risk in another installment of the Mexico vs. Japan rivalry of the lighter weight classes.
Tokyo based WBA 118 pound king Koki Kameda, 25-1 (16), faces undefeated Tijuana based Mexican David De La Mora, 23-0 (16), while 115 pound WBA ruler Hugo Fidel Cazares, 35-6-2 (25), of Los Mochis, Mexico squares off against local man Tomonobu Shimizu, 18-3-1 (9).
The flamboyant 24 year old Kameda will be making the second defense of the title won last December after knocking down KO artist Alexander Munoz in the 12th and final round.
The tricky southpaw southpaw has won three straight since losing his WBC flyweight crown to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam 17 months ago and Kameda has vowed to dazzle his faithful following with a tremendous title defense.
Standing in the way Kameda and his goals is 23 year old De La Mora, who will bring the confidence of an unbeaten record to Tokyo.
De La Mora, a former WBC Fecarbox belt holder, will have his work cut out for him as he’s never previously tested the waters at world level and has only fought outside of Mexico on two occasions, a pair of bouts across the border in America in 2009.
It would be a major upset in the bantamweight division if Kameda were to lose this contest as he is a heavy favorite to retain his WBA crown.
With Argentina’s ageless wonder and WBO super fly champion Omar Andres Narvaez moving up to challenge top ten pound for pound resident Nonito Donaire for the WBC and WBA bantam belts, Hugo Fidel Cazares now stands atop the 115 pound weight class.
The 33 year old southpaw has earned his “El Increible” nickname after four masterful defenses following his 2010 WBA title win over Nobuo Nashiro in Osaka.
Cazares will be making his third appearance in the land of the rising sun and will be counting on his seemingly increasing punching power to put an end to the ambitions of challenger Tomonobu Shimizu.
Shimizu will have the height and reach advantages to go along with the backing of a hometown crowd and the 30 year old will need all that and a career best performance if he is unseat the reigning champion.
The occasion marks only the second time the Tokyo stylist has tried his hand at super fly but Shimizu has plenty of experience as a flyweight.
The lanky 30 year old had just 11 bouts to his credit when he was stopped in the seventh round of a failed bid to unseat WBC champion Wonjongkam in 2007 but went onto win the Japanese flyweight strap in 2008.
Three months later, Shimizu again went for the WBC crown but this time was gunned down in the tenth by Daisuke Naito, although up until that point, Shimizu did much better than he had in his first world title attempt.
Shimizu went on to record four more domestic defenses and will be hoping that the third time is the charm when the bell rings against Cazares.
