February 16, 2001
TOKYO, JAPAN-The WBA lightweight champ Takanori Hatakeyama and Rick Roberts Yoshimura both tipped the beam at 135 pounds, the class limit, and were declared fit for tomorrow’s title bout.
The officials are as follows:
Referee Ken Morita (Japan), judges Jesus Cova and Federico Vollmer (both Venezuela) and ex-world champ Alexis Arguello (Nicaragua). The WBA supervisor is Gilberto Jesus Mendoza (Venezuela).
Hatakeyama, 24-1-2, 19 KOs, is a prefight favorite against Roberts, 38-5-1, 20 KOs, a US military worker previously staying here to register 22 defenses of the Japanese national 135-pound belt. The defending champ Hatakeyama once reigned as the WBA 130-pound ruler for 7 months until he forfeited his belt via 5th round KO by Monglian Lakva Sim in June, 1999. Since then, he was inactive for almost a year before he had an ambitious crack at the WBA 135-pound throne in his first comebacking bout and surprisingly dethroned Venezuelan Gilberto Serrano by a spectacular 8th round knockout last June. The 25-year-old Japanese, a busy boxer-puncher, kept it once by demolishing a compatriot left hooker Hiroyuki Sakamoto in the 10th here in October last.
Roberts, 11 years his senior at 36, has been unbeaten for last 7 years, scoring 23 wins against just one draw. The lanky jabber is more skillful and smart, if not faster and more powerful, than the champ. The New Yorker fought twice in NY, losing a couple of 4-round bouts in 1983 and 1984 prior to his military service in Japan. He resumed his fistic career here in 1987, and acquired the Japanese national 140-pound diadem in 1990 and retained it twice. Frederick Roberts got married with a Japanese lady named Yukiko Yoshimura and began fighting here as Rick Yoshimura. He wrested the national lightweight belt by beating Hiroyuki Maeda, currently rated in the WBA top ten, in 1994 and established the Japanese record of the most defenses by a national champ. Though Rick may be an underdog, he has a motivation to show his best form probably in his first and last title shot at the world throne.
This title bout takes place at Ryogoku Sumo Arena with perfectly all tickets already sold out.
(2-16-01)