October 2, 2015
TOKYO, JAPAN
Formerly WBA interim flyweight champ Koki Eto (17-3-1, 13 Kos), an elongated pupil of ex-WBA junior fly titlist Yoko Gushiken, will have a good opportunity to seize a world throne again as he will have an ambitious crack at the WBC super-fly belt against unbeaten Mexican Carlos Cuadras (33-0-1, 26 KOs) in Sendai city, Japan, on November 28. It was announced yesterday (Thursday) by Teiken Promotions and WOWOW Television. Koki, the eldest of three brothers (with Taiki and Shingo), 27, once acquired the WBA interim belt by upsetting Kompayak Porpramook via hairline decision thanks to a miraculously come-from-behind last-round knockdown in Thailand in August 2013, but forfeited the interim title to Yodmongkol Vor Saengthep by a twelfth round TKO also in Thailand in November that year. Since then, the thin man scored three wins all within the distance, winning the vacant OPBF 112-pound belt by finishing Filipino champ Arden Diale in the eighth canto to register a couple of successful defenses. Though standing nearly 5’8”, Koki isn’t a boxer but a puncher who loves recklessly swapping punches toe-to-toe with his opposition. The 60-year-old ex-champ and latest Hall of Famer, Gushiken eagerly wishes his pupil’s coronation, saying “I wish him to win the world belt for Okinawa as well as Japan.” Both Eto and Gushiken comes from Okinawa, a southern island that has often become a political issue.
The unbeaten Mexican Cuadras, also 27, for whom Japan is his second home country since he has fought five times here, will make his fifth defense since dethroning Thailand’s Srisaket Sor Rungvisai by an eighth-round technical decision in Mexico in May of the previous year. As both are hard-punching hombres, we may look forward to watching a give-and-take combat without doubt.
This show will be a WBC doubleheader, also featuring an already announced WBC light-fly title go between Mexican champ Pedro Guevara and ex-Japanese titlist Yu Kimura.
Formerly two-time world champ Takahiro Ao (27-3-1, 12 KOs) will participate in a revancha (rematch) with Gamaliel Diaz of Mexico to whom Ao forfeited his WBC 130-pound belt via upset verdict in October 2012. The show, presented by Teiken Promotions, will be seen live especially free by cable television watchers nationwide in Japan.
(10-2-2015)