What to Expect This Weekend
By: José A. Maldonado, MFA
This Friday on an excellent fight card in Tokyo’s International Forum, former flyweight and super flyweight champion Vic Darchinyan will challenge the relatively inexperienced Shinsuke Yamanaka for the WBC bantamweight title. Darchinyan, who came up short in Showtime’s Bantamweight Tournament, will look to take advantage of a bantamweight division that is suddenly devoid of big names. With Abner Mares having cleaned out the division and moving up to 122 in search of more lucrative fights, as well as Nonito Donaire at 122 and Jorge Arce chasing him, Darchinyan (37-4-1-27 KOs), now 36 years old, hopes to get a major title to use as leverage in future negotiations. His opponent, though already 29, only has 15 bouts against fighters who are not nearly the caliber of Darchinyan’s foes. Yet he is big for 118 at 5’7”, and packs a pretty good punch. A win over Darchinyan would look impressive on his resume and could lead to bigger and better things for the Japanese fighter. A victory for Darchinyan, however, would put him back near the top of 118 and may perhaps get him a rematch against WBA champ Anselmo Moreno, who beat Darchinyan in December.
Also at the Tokyo International Forum, Takahiro Ao, Marco Antonio Barrera’s former sparring partner and current WBC super featherweight champ, will defend his title against Thailand’s Terdsak Kokietgym. In spite of Kokietgym’s glossy record (46-3-1-31 KOs), he has mostly taken on mediocre opposition, although he did go the distance against both Joan Guzmán and Steve Luevano. Ao, meanwhile, though with significantly less experience, has faced tougher fighters including Oscar Larios (twice), Elio Rojas, and Vitali Tajbert. With this discrepancy in competition, expect Ao to successfully defend his belt.
Rounding out this superb event will be former bantamweight and featherweight champ Hozumi Hasegawa, fighting for the first time in a year as he tries to get his career back on track. Despite beating Juan Carlos Burgos in one of 2010’s most exciting fights, he has been rather inactive, having fought only 3 times in the past 2 years and going 1-2 in that span, both losses coming by TKO. He’ll face Felipe Carlos Felix, an obscure Mexican fighter with a record of 18-0-10 KOs who will be fighting outside of Mexico for the first time. Should the 31 year old Hasegawa be victorious expect to see him again sometime in the summer as he will no doubt be rejuvenated by the W. A loss, on the other hand, would be devastating.
For some reason, James Toney will be fighting bare knuckle champion Bobby Gunn on Saturday. Yes, that James Toney, as in “Lights Out,” as in 43 years old with 85 fights under his belt. Though New Jersey’s Gunn (21-4-1-18 KOs) is best known for his exploits as a bare knuckle boxer, this will be a sanctioned, traditional boxing match at the Landers Center in Mississippi. In February, the two nearly came to blows during a press conference, and afterward Toney (73-7-3-44 KOs) called Gunn a “dirty gypsy bastard,” perhaps (falsely) referring to Gunn’s Irish roots. Gunn responded by saying that the former world champ was constipated and “full of shit.” Call it promotional techniques, call it showmanship, but I’ll call it what it is: garbage.
Telefutura’s “Solo Boxeo” card will be headlined by amateur standout Ronny Ríos of Santa Ana as he begins a year that will no doubt be busy and instrumental to his future success. Ríos has been brought along nicely by Golden Boy Promotions, although I feel they could have done better in selecting an opponent for Saturday when they went with Gilberto Sánchez (13-5-1-5 KOs), especially after Ríos’ signature victory over Roger “Speedy” González last year. But since this is Ríos’ first time headlining a televised card, we’ll let this one slide. Expect the 22 year old Ríos (17-0-8 KOs) to fight a few more times before year’s end, hopefully against better and better opposition.
Saturday in Cancún, Edgar Sosa and Wilbert Uicab will vie for a shot at the WBC flyweight title in an eliminator. Both looked to be in excellent shape and nearly on-weight at the required WBC pre-weigh-in this week. The winner will take on newly-crowned WBC champ Sonny Boy Jaro, who is coming off the year’s biggest upset in a huge win over Thai legend Pongsaklek Wonjongkam in March. Strangely enough, Sosa (44-7-27 KOs) has faced them both, beating Jaro by unanimous decision in 2008 and falling to Wonjongkam by decision while challenging for the WBC title. Though Uicab (33-6-1-18 KOs) hasn’t faced very good opposition, he is the younger of the two and will be fighting in front of his hometown crowd. Should be a helluva fight.
Humberto “La Zorrita” Soto will also be on the card in Cancún as he prepares to fight Lucas Matthysse in June. He’ll take on Cluadinei Lacerda (14-2-10 KOs). Soto will have to be as clever as his name implies (The Fox) if he wants to keep his big summer pay check intact, especially since Cancún the place where only a week ago another fighter threw away his chance at a bigger fight when Jorge Linares was stopped by Sergio Thompson. I wouldn’t expect lighting to strike twice, but in this sport, you never know. . .
José A. Maldonado is senior staff writer at punchrate.com and contributor to realcombatmedia.com
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