Kazuto Ioka - Akira Yaegashi 6 July according to boxrec!

[Roman Moreno]

The problem with Joyi unifying against either Ioka or Akira is that the JBC only recognizes the WBA and WBC. They don't recognize the IBF that Joyi holds.

It would be easier for Joyi to unify with the WBO champ Moises Fuentes. That's a more realistic unification for him. However, one of them would have to go on the road for the first time.

This division is useless. It should be eliminated have the 108 division being the lowest weight-class in boxing. It would be so much and deeper. But, this Ioka-Akira fight is pretty good fight. It is rare to see 2 Japanese fighters unify against each other. And, I think it would be an exciting fight as well. Ioka is somewhat big in Japan already. And, comes from a family background. Ioka is pretty skilled for his age. I have him beating Akira.

[Roman Moreno]

I don't know where it came from. I had Joyi winning clearly. I can see people scoring it other way, it's always tough to score those fights of little guys throwing tons of punches simultanously, but there's no right to call it robbery, no way.

Cool

I don't think that would be fair for guys like Ivan Calderon. He was small even for strawweight and when he fought Cazares and Segura it looked like there was 3 weightclasses between them. Minimumweight is there to stay and I think for good reasons, we just need some unifications there.

Nah, I disagree it is a fairly useless division. It is there to stay but not for good reason. Is pretty useless. The 2 best fighters in Joyi and Ioka can easily compete at 108 easily. Them along along with Roman would be the 3 best fighters in the division. Akira, Fuentes, Cuello all of them could easily compete at 108. It is fairly useless. And, a prime Calderon could also compete.

[Roman Moreno]

It depend how you look at it, if you want strong competition inside one division then you can claim there's plenty of useless weight-classes. I look at it different way, to me man of every size should have division that suites him, so he won't be forced to face significant size disadventage.

There are too many weight-classes. But, not useless weight-classes. Just too many. Having 1 less wouldn't hurt at all.

I'm strongly against there being a Super HW division. I hope they never make that weight-class. I don't care if it would suit a particular fighter better. Super HW division would be a useless division. 105 is a useless division. I haven't seen an 105 fighter who couldn't compete at 108. The only one that can be made a case for is probably Calderon. But, besides every fighter that has fought there could compete at 108. All the way from Ricardo Lopez. Finito could have easily competed at 108.

105 is pretty useless. They could make a weight-class for midgets because it would "suite" them. But, that would be useless.

[JK1700]

I thought ****sawan won clearly, it was in Indonesia after all and I don't really heard anybody claiming Rach was robbed..
But beside that I agree, as much as I like Ioka and Yaegashi, it's not like 2 dominant champions were fighting for supremacy in the division. You can see 2 better fighters meeting in the ring in strawweight without unification. Let's say it's more like Devon Alexander - Juan Urango than Calzaghe - Kessler.
And Joyi I believe is seeking unifications, the thing is he wants to bring other champions to Africa, what with the money Japanese fighters are having in their country is just so unlikely.
Too bad it won't happen, but I really believe he(Joyi) is nightmare for anyone at the division now with his workrate, size and strength. He may be the best guy strawweight has seen since Calderon.

Well, I saw a few people stating that Rachman got robbed, but that's besides the point. I'd have liked to see Yaegashi fight a top guy before Ioka to see how he does so that I kind of know where he stands a bit more (Rachman, Palacios, Kokietgym, someone like that). As of right now I still think he's a bit unproven despite beating ****sawan who is an incredibly tough fighter, but also very limited. It's still a good matchup though and i'm glad that it's happening, because you hardly ever see unifications in the lower weight divisions.

Joyi is probably the best right now but just based on his resume I can't rate him too highly because he's only beaten two seriously world class fighters in Raul Garcia and Katsunari Takayama. Lorenzo Trejo and Sammy Guttierez were also good wins, I guess. I think that Ivan Calderon is overrated. Yes he was undefeated for a long time but he didn't fight as good a level of opposition as Eagle Kyowa and Yutaka Niida did. If he did, I think he would have lost earlier. He fought a lot of good fighters, but very few serious threats. In terms of accomplishments and resume you probably have to put him at #2 behind Lopez but I don't think he would have been able to beat people like Chana Porpaoin, Rosendo Alvarez, Eagle Kyowa, Oleydong Sithsamerchai and Roman Gonzalez.

The problem with Joyi unifying against either Ioka or Akira is that the JBC only recognizes the WBA and WBC. They don't recognize the IBF that Joyi holds.

It would be easier for Joyi to unify with the WBO champ Moises Fuentes. That's a more realistic unification for him. However, one of them would have to go on the road for the first time.

This division is useless. It should be eliminated have the 108 division being the lowest weight-class in boxing. It would be so much and deeper. But, this Ioka-Akira fight is pretty good fight. It is rare to see 2 Japanese fighters unify against each other. And, I think it would be an exciting fight as well. Ioka is somewhat big in Japan already. And, comes from a family background. Ioka is pretty skilled for his age. I have him beating Akira.

I really don't think it matters that the JBC doesn't recognize the IBF. They don't recognize the WBO either, but that didn't stop Fernando Montiel from fighting Hozumi Hasegawa for the lineal title. They could just fight for the WBC belt, and if Joyi won he would have two belts. It's not like he would have to give up his belt to face Ioka, it just wouldn't be on the line if they fought in Japan.

I just wish they would say "screw the sanctioning bodies" and fight each other to prove who is the best, kind of like what Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver did in 2004 when they fought for the IBO and Ring belts. Anyway, I accept that it probably won't happen, because Ioka wants to move up after this bout. Once he does, assuming he beats Yaegashi, I would like to see him against Roman Gonzalez. I give him a good chance of beating Roman because Gonzalez has been very dissapointing in his selection of opponents recently, and I think it is going to hurt him because he isn't being tested like he would be against somebody like Ioka. I wish Roman had a better promoter, because is a great talent, but it seems like he's only been facing Mexican journeymen recently.

[Hougigo]

If Ioka wins, that's 2 belts in a handful of fights.
How far do you guys think he'll go weight wise?

[porknchili]

I think that Ioka is just too good for Yaegashi and will stop him early. Should be a fun fight while it lasts though.

Word is that Joyi deserve to lose his last fight against Takayama. Supposedly Takayama was robbed. I haven't seen it yet though.

I just watched it and I scored it 115-112 for Takayama although it was a close and competitive fight. The South African broadcasters were so biased towards Joyi, so much so that it makes the HBO team look like saints. Takayama landed his straight right hand at will and was able to control Joyi with his jab at times from the outside. Joyi pretty much looked like a better Paul Williams-albeit with slightly better defense, more power, and more aggression-but was pretty much outfought in the 2nd half of the fight and appeared to slow down the stretch.

[BattleAxePurist]

Excellent fight but bad day on a wednesday in the morning...DUH

[bigcursedawg]

If Ioka wins, that's 2 belts in a handful of fights.
How far do you guys think he'll go weight wise?

He got a good resume for only having 9 fights. I was thinking the same thing the other day. Its hard to say he's only 23 and he can still be growing. He could go up as far as 118 imo, especially if he grows a inch or two.

[Hougigo]

He got a good resume for only having 9 fights. I was thinking the same thing the other day. Its hard to say he's only 23 and he can still be growing. He could go up as far as 118 imo, especially if he grows a inch or two.

I think he's done growing, and I'd agree... maybe 122.
All I can say is, I can't wait for this fight. Bring some attention back down to the minimumweight class.

[JK1700]

You're way off with Calderon though. He did not face tought competition but he proved himself by getting best career wins while he was out of his weight class and past prime, similar to Mark Johnson. Roman Gonzalez, Kyowa or Sithsamerchai are not even in his league, They'd end up schooled just like the rest. It's not even close or debatable. I don't know Rosendo and Porapoin well enough so I won't speak about that, but thing is, Calderon was amazing and untouchable to most of strawweights.

I'm not debating whether he's a great fighter or not, he is a great fighter, but I don't think he is the 2nd best Strawweight ever when were talking about his in ring game. In terms of resume and longevity, he is, but like I stated before, the quality of his reign is overrated. There's people that I think would have beaten him. He might have looked great in a lot of his fights, but it's easy to look great against poor competition. That's why a guy like Yutaka Niida didn't look as good as Calderon, because he was facing mandatories every 2 fights. It's absurd to say "Kyowa and Niida aren't even in his league" when both of those guys faced and beat better competition than he did, which is why they ended up with losses quicker. Niida was rated higher than Calderon for most of their reigns, and Jose Antonio Aguirre was rated #1 in the world for 3 years running before Eagle destroyed him. How anyone can come to the conclusion that they "aren't even in his league" I just don't know. Calderon wasn't the "stand out" by any means.

I think that people overrate the undefeated record too much and don't pay enough attention to the detail and who is on the record. Given the way he crumbled against Segura, I very much doubt that Calderon would have been able to stand up to and overcome the pressure of guys like Alvarez, Kyowa, Niida, Landaeta, Takayama and Gonzalez. He might have done, but unfortunately we will never know and you can't look at his fights against inferior competition and try to use it as evidence that he would have. Porpaoin and Alvarez were both incredible fighters. Especially Alvarez, who could have been legendary, if he only had more discipline. He had all the tools, skill, speed, power, tenacity, defence...