## EX-154LB CHAMP ISHIDA TO INVADE HEAVYWEIGHT CLASS

January 11, 2014

TOKYO, JAPAN

Do you know French superstar Georges Carpentier (88-14-6, 57 KOs) fought from the flyweight division up to the heavyweight category? Carpentier battled Jack Dempsey in the first Million Dollar Gate in 1921, but it was in the 112-pound class that he, at only fourteen, started his professional campaign in 1908. The vastly talented Carpentier grew up fast and captured the national welterweight belt by finishing Robert Eustache in sixteen rounds when only sixteen. Carpentier amazingly acquired the European welter, middle, light heavy and heavyweight belts in succession to his credit prior to his sensational encounter with Manassa Mauler.

We, in Japan, have a campaigner that attempts to follow the footstep of the Orchid Man by fighting from the flyweight to the heavyweight categories. It is ex-WBA 154-pound interim champ Nobuhiro Ishida (25-9-2, 10 KOs), who previously upset James Kirkland via first round stoppage, but lost to Paul Williams and failed to win the world 160-pound belt from Dmitry Pirog and Gennady Golovkin. The elongated Japanese started his amateur career as a flyweight boy and gradually moved up to the middleweight division, and very lately announced to try to move up to the heavyweight division.

Do you know the border between the heavyweight and cruiserweight classes? Itfs 200 pounds (about 90 kilogram). Ishida, a 38-year-old six-footer, applied for a license of the Japan Boxing Commission (JBC) to fight in the heaviest division from now on, but the JBC forced him to show his capability of campaigning in the 200-plus category. Even with his strenuous weight training it doesnft seem so easy to gain the weight so fast.

The open test for Ishida to be granted or not took place prior to the OPBF lightweight title bout (where Masayoshi Nakatani dethroned Yoshitaka Kato) at the Korakuen Hall this Saturday. Ishida, 201 pounds, showed sparring sessions with Yamato Fujinaka (4-3, 1 KO), 252, but apparently looked overpowered by the much heavier compatriot in the first session. The more experienced Ishida, however, displayed his superior skills in outpunching the fatty Fujinaka with faster combinations in the next round.

The JBCfs last judgment will be made at the ratings committee meeting in the end of this month to decide whether Ishida to be eligible for a new rank in the heavyweight division. If successful, Ishida will have an ambitious shot at the national heavy belt against defending champ Kyotaro Fujimoto (8-1, 5 KOs) on April 30. Can he be a Japanese Carpentier?

(1-14-2014)

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