WBA Super World super featherweight champ Takashi Uchiyama will defend his title against Jezreel Corrales over a scheduled 12 rounds at Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo on Wednesday, April 27.
Fighting out of Tokyo, 36-year-old Uchiyama is an undefeated 11-year ring vet (24-0-1, 20 KOs) who won the WBA World super featherweight title by stopping Juan Carlos Salgado via 12th-round TKO in January 2010. “KO Dynamite” has successfully defended 11 times (including one draw), most recently last December when he stopped Oliver Flores by third-round TKO. He was upgraded to Super champion last February.
His Panamanian opponent, 24, is a seven-year pro (19-1, 7 KOs, 1 no contest) who won the interim WBA World super featherweight title in his most recent fight, last December, by retiring Juan Antonio Rodriguez in the 11th. His sole loss came in his second fight, in April 2009, defeated by Jhonatan Arenas via unanimous decision. “El Invisible,” a southpaw, is first-ranked by the WBA.
Uchiyama was supposed to face undefeated and second-ranked Nicholas Walters (stripped of his WBA Super World featherweight title for failing to make weight prior to his June 2015 championship match with Miguel Marriaga), but the WBA instead ordered a title match with Javier Fortuna, undefeated WBA World super featherweight champ. When negotiations fell through, Corrales got the nod.
Fighting on the same card will be WBA World super flyweight and WBA World light flyweight titleholders Kohei Kono and Ryoichi Taguchi, who’ll be defending their titles against opponents yet to be named.
This article was penned by the author who is not related to the WBA and the statements, expressions or opinions referenced herein are that of the author alone and not the WBA.
