The night the Light Flyweight division changed

In a bizarre night of boxing in which 3 rematches took place for titles in the Light Flyweight division and a WBO minimumweight title bout we crowned 3 NEW world champions.

 Firstly in Mexico the WBC Light Flyweight title changed hands as Adrian "El Confessor" Hernandez stopped Gilberto Keb Baas. These two met a few years ago with Hernandez doing the job in 4 rounds. The bout was an enthralling bout through out with the 25 year old Hernandez rising to the task and Keb Baas' corner stopping the bout between the 10th and 11th round. Hernandez does look like one who could be very exciting in the future.

 Also in Mexico the WBO Light Flyweight title changed hands as Jesus Geles was stopped in 4 rounds by Ramon Hirales Garcia. These two had fought in February in a "WBO Interim unification" bout (I kid you not) with Geles taking a decision in his native Mexico. On that card we also had WBO Minimumweight champion Raul Garcia stopping Filipino challenger Rommel Asenjo in 3 rounds to stop the rise of the man known as "My little assassin".

 In an horrifically scored and horrifically refereed bout in Argentina we saw 40 year old Luis Alberto Lazarte lose his IBF Light Flyweight title to Ulises Solis. These two men had met in December of last year and Lazarte, with 2 point deductions had managed to score a draw in a bout he could have been disqualified in a number of times. This time it was Solis who was deducted a point in a bout he seemed to win by a wide margin though the judges cards read 116-112 to Solis
 114-113 to Lazarte 115-112 to Solis. How Lazarte wasn't deducted points or kicked out was mystery, his most potent blows were low or behind the head.

 The night has seen a total shift in the Light Flyweight division with 3 new title holders, with Mexicans taking titles away from an Argentinian and a Colombian. The current list of all the world champions in the sport can be found here

The biggest day in Light Flyweight History?

April 30^th looks likely to be the biggest day ever in Light Flyweight history. It's a day in which the division will possibly be turned on it's head as the WBO, WBC and IBF titles are all fought for on the same night. WBPT have previewed all of the fights and we'll get onto that a little bit later on but does the division stand on the verge of a major shake up or are we going to see 3 easy title defences?

In Argentina we have a rematch of one of 2010's most controversial bouts as champion Luis Alberto Lazarte faces off against Ulises Solis in an IBF defence. The 1^st bout between the two could easily have ended mid way through due to all the fouls committed by the Argentinian champion. Now aged 40 Lazarte really needs to pull something out of the bag. Kevin Donnelly previewing the fight for WBTP ended his preview with a forewarning of “Do not be surprised to see either a wide decision or even a DQ win for the Mexican challenger.”
Solis is a class fighter and already deserves the title and I think now he gets it.

Preview of that bout can be read here (Thanks to Kevin Donnelly)

The other two fights are both in Mexico and are also both title rematches. Firstly we have WBC champion Gilberto Keb Baas facing hot youngster Adrian Hernandez. These two first met over 3 years ago and Hernandez stopped Keb Baas in the 4^th round. At that time Hernandez seemed destined for greatness he'd gone to 13-0 (11) and had beaten Keb Baas and Rodel Mayol both by 4^th round KO. Soon afterwards he suffered a draw with Eric Ortiz and a TKO loss to Oscar Ibarra. Whilst Hernandez is trying to rebuild his career somewhat Keb Baas is revelling in an Indian summer as the WBC champion having won a title on his 3^rd try.

Preview of that bout can be read here

The final fight in the divisions day to remember is another rematch though one from just a few months ago as Colombian Jesus Geles defends his WBO title against Ramon Garcia Hirales. The two met in February in a “WBO interim Unification bout”, though when Giovanni Segura made his plans to step up to Flyweight the full version of the title was award to Geles. I their first bout both fighters fought brilliantly with Geles taking a thin split decision in a fight that was really close. That fight was in Colombia and this one is in Mexico, expect the challenger to take a thin decision based on the back of the crowd's noises.

Preview of that bout can be read here

Whether it's the most important day in the divisions history or not, one thing is certain, it'll be the busiest. In a division that is as a talent laden as this one is it could be very difficult to imagine any of the winners holding the titles for too long with out being in big fights. The division boasts the unbeaten Roman Gonzalez (WBA champion), Filipino great Donnie Nietes (former WBO minimumweight champion), unbeaten Mexican Jose Rodriguez and although it's lost it's biggest name in Giovanni Segura it's still a more than interesting division. How often can we say that about the 108lbs division?

Japanese Triple header

This coming Friday night sees a boxing triple header with 3 world title fights on the same card. Although the card is in Japan it's certainly a must watch for all boxing fans as some of the best smaller men in the sport put it on the line in 3 rather interesting bouts. The last triple header I can remember was a Don King card in St Louis which had the following fights:

Devon Alexander v Andriy Kotelnik (WBC + IBF Light Welterweight title fight)

Tavoris Cloud v Glen Johnson (IBF Light Heavyweight title fight)

Cory Spinks v Cornelius Bundrage (IBF Light Middleweight title fight)

Of those 3 fights we only saw 1 champion officially lose (Spinks was stopped in the 5^th round) despite many feeling that Kotelnik had done enough to take away Alexander's titles.

In Japan we have:

Hozumi Hasegawa v Jhonny Gonzalez (WBC Featherweight title fight)

Toshiaki Nishioka v Mauricio Javier Munoz (WBC Super Bantamweight title fight)

Takahiro Ao v Humberto Mauro Gutierrez (WBC Super Featherweight title fight)

For those not familiar with the champions he's a little bit on each of them.

Hasegawa (29-3, 12KO's) is 30 years old and after losing 2 of his first 5 fights went unbeaten for almost 9 years. His most recent loss came at the hands of Fernando Montiel (LTKO4), the first and only time Hasegawa has been stopped. The loss to Montiel ended Hasegawa's reign as WBC Bantamweight champion that started back in April 2005 that started when Hasegawa defeated Veeraphol Sahaprom. He has fought just once since losing to Montiel last April and beat Juan Carlos Burgos for the vacant WBC Featherweight title.

A skilled fighter the Southpaw doesn't have the fight changing power of some others in the division (Juan Manuel Lopez, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Mickey Garcia) though is one of the truly skilled fighters who moves and punches brilliantly.

Nishioka (37-4-3, 23KO's) is 34 years old and like Hasegawa he is a southpaw. Nishioka turned professional in 1994 and suffered a KO loss in his second bout, after 8 fights he was 6-2 which would extend to 11-2-1, since then all the blots on his record have come to Veeraphol Sahaprom. Nishioka and Sahaprom met 4 times (in 2000, 2001, 20003 and 2004) with Sahaprom winning the 1^st and 4^th meeting with the middle two being draws. Since the 2004 loss though Nishioka has been on a solid run of victories since then with 14 straight wins 8 of those by stoppage. Included in those wins were decisions over Napapol Sor Rungvisa and Rendall Munroe and stoppages over Genaro Garcia, Jhonny Gonzalez, Ivan Hernandez and Balweg Bangoyan.

Nishioka isn't particularly fast with either his hands or his feet though he is very technically solid, he doesn't waste much when he throws. Though it's really his power that stands out, he's not a monster hitter by any stretch of the imagination though what he is is a very solid hitter, he hits hard, he hits clean and he hits well. He showed against Munroe that he can break down hard working fighters. He can sometimes start slowly and was dropped against Gonzalez, though when he gets going he's simply brilliant and to beat him you need to keep him out of his rhythm. If he lands with a clean accurate shot it can well mean goodnight.

Ao (29-2-1, 9KO's) is the baby amongst the trio at just 26 years old. The blots in Ao's record have all come to good fighters with a draw against Hiroyuki Enoki in 2008 and a loss to Oscar Larios the same year. He has also lost to Elios Rojas. Ao does hold several notable wins though including victory in a rematch with Larios, a stoppage over Whyber Garcia and most recently a decision over Vitali Tajbert in November of last year. Ao like the other 2 fighters is a southpaw and much less well known. Currently ranked by Boxrec.com as the 3^rd best Super Featherweight in the world he relies on his skills rather than power though faces the dangerous Humberto Mauro Gutierrez. Guitierrez has lost to Tajbert a year prior to Ao's win.

Although I'd favour all 3 of the Japanese fighters to win (though the fights should be relatively fun to watch) the matches really aren't walk overs.

I keep losing gimme a title fight!

This sports a funny sport. One day you could have lost 7 of your last 9, you could have lost 4 world title fights in those 7 losses, you could be 35 as well, and yet tomorrow you could have made it 7 losses in 10 and be the world champion. Don't ask me how Jose Antonio Aguirre managed to get his recent WBC Light Flyweight title fight and we, as boxing fans need to feel a little bit relieved he's not going to wake up tomorrow as the champion but what were the WBC thinking?

Aguirre,who fell to 35-10-1 challenged Gilberto Keb Baas, now 35-20-4 for the title. Aguirre had some how been ranked #8 by the WBC in a weight class he hadn't made since May 2007 and hadn't scored a win in since August 2006. Not only had he gone 2-7 entering the bout but he'd been fighting at a higher weight class, his wins had come fighters with terrible records (4-5-1 and 8-16-3) and he'd fought only once in 2 years.

Although Keb Baas has a much worse record his recent form has genuinely been half decent. His previous 9 fights had been 6-1-2 including a brilliant win over Omar Nino Romero for the title. Most of his career losses were to decent fighters, guys like Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Victor Zaleta and Omar Salado and he was in the form of his life, he was active, he was tick all the right boxes as a fighter. Don't get me wrong, he's nothing more than a title holder waiting for a challenger to come along and take his belt away, but he's an active fighter over the past few years on a run. Aguirre is an inactive fighter, who has been on the receiving end of a lot of recent beatings and should NEVER have been world ranked. Only the WBC ranked Aguirre which says it all.

Aguirre had, once, almost a life time ago (2000-2004) been the WBC's Minimumweight champion, maybe this is what helped lift him to such an over-inflated ranking, though it's stupid if it was and would allow fighter 5 years deposed to challenger for titles a division up. What may be the worst problem though is that this is the 3^rd attempt at the same title that Aguirre has had since 2005. His first attempt was a loss to Eric Ortiz (TKO7), his second was a 12 round decision to Brian Viloria. He would also challenge Roberto Vasquez (WBA champion) and Ulises Solis (IBF champion) for the title during his 2-7 run.

Imagine if tomorrow, Monte Barrett stood at #8 in any of the heavyweight rankings and the slaughtering a fighter would get for facing him. Oddly Barrett would, on paper, not me a much worse challenger. Barrett is 4 years older (39 to Aguirre's 35), with 1 draw more on his record (34-9-2 to Aguirre's 34-9-1) but 3-4-2 in his last 9. This really is the scandalous world of boxing rankings folks. A real joke.

Oh and just to test a theory. Manny Pacquiao.