Courtesy: Joe Koizumi
This Thursday took place in Tokyo the press conference to present the November 10 boxing program, organized by Teiken Promotion, and its president Akihiko Honda informed it would take place in Kokugikan Arena (National Sports Arena or Sumo Arena), with two world fights.
The first championship fight will be for the WBA Lightweight title, where the featherweight and super featherweight former world champion Jorge Linares (34-3/22KOs) will be challenging the world champion Richard Abril (18-3-1/8KOs), who will be defending his title for the second time.
Jorge Linares said he is happy for this opportunity, for his future in boxing, and to fight for a world title fight in Tokyo, as he won his two previous title outside Japan; the first time he won the WBC featherweight championship in Las Vegas, 2007 and the second time he won the WBA Super featherweight in Panama 2008.
The Venezuelan Linares was only 17 years old when he travelled to Japan in 2002 to join the Teiken Boxing Gym stable in Tokyo to jumped to professional, after an amateur record of 151-5/100 KO’s in Venezuela.
He stated he was motivated for this new title fight opportunity in Japan. Saying that he will be travelling to Las Vegas to next week to train under the supervision of the Cuban trainer Ismael Salas for this fight with Richard Abril for the Lightweight title.
In his most recent fight held at the Ariake Colosseoum of Tokyo, last August, Linares TKO Berman Sanchez. This marked Jorge Linares comeback to Japanese ring after three years of absence.
The main fight will be for the WBC Bantamweight title between the southpaw Nippon Shinsuke Yamanaka (19-0-2/14KOs) and the Mexican challenger Alberto “Metro” Guevara (18-1/6 KOs).
We will see the minimum weight super champion Román “Chocolatito” González (36-0/30KOs) vs. tba.
“Chocolatito” González will fight for the sixth time in Japan.
Former feather and super featherweight champion Takahiro Aoh (24-3-1/11KOs) will fight a 10 round with an opponent to be announced.
This is said to be a warm up fight for Takahiro Aoh for a future title fight.
