Tag Archives: Takashi

Posted on 07/14/2017

Hard-punching 50-50 Match-ups Featured at the Forum
By Adam J. Pollack

On Saturday July 15, the Forum in Los Angeles will feature several highly entertaining matchups. The main event features WBC World Super Featherweight Champion Miguel Berchelt, 31-1, 28 KOs, vs. Takashi Miura, 31-3-2, 24 KOs, two punchers who love to fight. Although Berchelt likely will win, for he has the superior talent and skill, this is one of those fights that you watch simply because you know that regardless of the result, both guys will fight hard, in entertaining fashion. Miura forces the fight with hard punches and can take some big ones, and both of these guys can hit.

Photo Credit: Kyte Monroe/BoxStats

If you are looking for a really hard-punching intriguing 50-50 type match-up, in which the outcome truly is in doubt, Joe Smith, Jr., 23-1, 19 KOs, vs. Sullivan Barrera, 19-1, 14 KOs is the fight for you. The very heavy-handed Smith, Jr. has freakish power, such that regardless of what the score is in a fight, if hits his opponent, the fight can be over in the blink of an eye. Remember, he knocked out Bernard Hopkins, who although old, had never been stopped before, and was a guy who knew every trick and artifice of the game. He also knocked out Andrej Fonfara in the very 1st round, and Fonfara had gone the distance with Adonis Stevenson, knocked out Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., and beaten Glen Johnson and Byron Mitchell.

Smith Jr. is going up a very tough man in Sullivan Barrera, a guy whose only loss was a decision to Andre Ward. Barrera knocked out Jeff Lacy in 4, Karo Murat in 5, and handed the hard-punching then 17-0, 14 KOs Ukrainian Vyacheslav Shabranskyy his only loss, stopping him in the 7th round. Like Smith Jr., Barrera can punch. So this is likely to be another hard-punching bang-‘em-out war. The likely winner is unclear.

Also on the card, undefeated WBA Super Featherweight Champion Jezreel “El Invisible” Corrales (21-0, 8 KOs) takes on Robinson “Robin Hood” Castellanos, 24-12, 14 KOs, who recently stopped former champion Yuriorkis Gamboa in his last fight. Castellanos has managed to score several upset victories, defeating Rocky Juarez and then-undefeated Ronny Rios, in addition to Gamboa, so he seems to thrive on his underestimated underdog status. The undefeated Corrales won the championship by handing then undefeated Takashi Uchiyama his first losses, both by knocking him out and winning the rematch by decision. This is a really solid, competitive contest.

Other quality match-ups on the card include:

Mercito Gesta, 30-1-2 vs. Martin Honorio, 33-10-1
Manny Robles, Jr. 12-0 vs. Christian Esquivel, 30-11
Horacio Garcia, 32-2-1 vs. Diuhl Olguin, 11-16-3
Ryan Garcia, 9-0, vs. Mario Antonio Macias, 28-21

Posted on 01/27/2017

HBO Boxing After Dark Preview: Francisco Vargas vs. Miguel Berchelt, Takashi Miura vs. Mickey Roman
By: William Holmes

On Saturday night HBO will present two fights on their Boxing After Dark Series to run against the Showtime card that features a rematch between Leo Santa Cruz and Carl Frampton.

Saturday’s card will feature two bouts in the Super Featherweight Division live from the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California. Golden Boy Promotions will be the lead promoter on this event.

The two bouts on the card will be a WBC Junior Lightweight Title fight between Francisco Vargas and challenger Miguel Berchelt. The co-main event of the evening will be between Takashi Miura and Miguel “Mickey” Roman in a WBC Junior Lightweight Title eliminator.

The following is a preview of both televised bouts.

Takashi Miura (30-3-2) vs. Mickey Roman (56-11); Junior Lightweight

This should be a fan friendly fight and both boxers are known for their power. The winner of this bout will likely face the winner of the main event in the near future.

Miura has twenty three stoppage wins and two stoppage losses. Roman has been on a tear recently and has forty three stoppage wins and only one stoppage loss, including six straight wins by stoppage. However, Roman did not experience a lot of success early on in his career as evident in his eleven total losses.

Miura will be one year older than Roman, and will also be about an inch and a half taller. Miura is a southpaw and Roman fights out of an orthodox stance so we have a fight that will likely feature numerous clashing of heads.

Roman, who hasn’t lost since 2012, has defeated the likes of Edgar Puerta, Daniel Ponce De Leon, and Juan Carlos Salgado. However, he usually loses when he takes a step up in competition and has lost to the likes of Antonio DeMarco, Jonathan Victor Barros, Miguel Beltran, Antonio Escalante, Fernando Beltran, Javier Fortuna and other less descript opponents.

Miura has losses to Francisco Vargas, Takashi Uchiyama, and Yusuke Kobori. He has defeated the likes of Billy Dib, Edgar Puerta, Sergio Thompson, Gamaliel Diaz, and Yoshimitsu Yashiro.

At first glance this looks like a fight that Miura should win easily, but you can’t discount the success that Roman has had recently and his current string of stoppage victories. Miura should still be considered the favorite, but Roman will make it a tough decision for him to win.

Francisco Vargas (23-0) vs. Miguel Berchelt (30-1); WBC Junior Lightweight Title

This has the potential to be a barn burner and an early candidate for fight of the year.

Vargas, the current WBC Junior Lightweight Champion, is coming off of a majority draw in a crowd pleasing fight with the rugged Orlando Salido. Vargas only fought once in 2016 and twice in 2015, but he made his first fight in 2017 a tough one.
Vargas has a deep amateur background and represented Mexico in the 2008 Summer Olympics. Berchelt is a three time Mexican National Boxing Champion as an amateur.

They both have power in their hands. Berchelt has twenty seven stoppage wins and his past four fights have come by stoppage. Vargas has seventeen stoppage victories and three of his past four fights resulted in a stoppage win.

Berchelt will be seven years younger than Vargas on fight night and will also have a one inch height advantage and about a two inch reach advantage. Berchelt has also been more active than Vargas, he fought twice in 2016 and four times in 2015.

The difference between Vargas and Berchelt becomes most evident when comparing their professional resumes. Saturday will only be Berchelt’s second fight outside of Mexico as a professional. His notable victories include Suriya Tatakhun, Sergio Puente, Rene Gonzalez, and Oliver Flores. His lone loss was to Luis Eduardo Florez.

Vargas has defeated the likes of Takashi Miura, Will Tomlinson, Juan Manuel Lopez, Abner Cotto, Jerry Belmontes, and Brandon Bennett.

This is an interesting matchup, especially since Berchelt has some heavy power in his hands and is a three time Mexican National Champion that has very limited exposure to the American audience. But, Vargas is the better tested fighter and is still in the midst of his prime.

It’s possible that Vargas will be overlooking Berchelt and will be looking forward to his rematch with Orlando Salido, but it appears unlikely that Berchelt will walk away with an upset victory.

Posted on 10/03/2016

A Look At Salido-Miura
By: Brandon Bernica

​This past week, a knuckle-loaded slugfest between veterans Orlando Salido and Takashi Miura was finalized for December 17th. Instantly, the boxing world rejoiced at the pairing, familiar with the intensity with which each man fights with.

​Salido (43-13-4), the grizzled veteran from Mexico, had made a name for himself for being in all-action fights. His mixed draw with Francisco Vargas this year was considered the fight of this year by many ringside observers. The former two-division champion also holds longstanding rivalries with Juan Manuel Lopez and Roman Martinez, engaging in crowd-pleasing affairs with each man.

​Salido’s biggest win came against one of the greatest amateurs of all-time, Vasyl Lomachenko, in a controversial bout. In Lomachenko’s second pro outing, Salido edged the fight on the cards despite weighing in overweight and firing a string of low blows.

​Meanwhile Miura (30-3-2) shares a common opponent with Salido in Vargas. Miura led much of that fight until Vargas turned the tables and knocked him out in an entertaining finish. Wins over Gamaliel Diaz, Billy Dib, and Sergio Thompson punctuate the Japanese fighter’s solid career. His only other loss came at the hands of his native rival Takashi Uchiyama in Japan.

​Salido-Miura promises nothing but non-stop action. Both fighters thrive on wearing their opponents out in grueling wars of attrition. The caveat here is that each man has also shown vulnerability in past fights. Both men are open to be hit and have been knocked out in the past. You can all but guarantee the fight will either be a long, taxing battle or a quick, explosive fight.

​One angle of the promotion I would love to see uncovered is the budding rivalry between Japan and Mexico. Both countries sport fighting cultures that celebrate fighting with guts and gusto, pressing forward until your opponent calls mercy. With classic fights between the two countries in recent years such as Arakawa-Figueroa, Kamegai-Soto Karass and Miura-Vargas, the evidence begs the question: why don’t we explore this rivalry more? Clearly, it works, and it can expose U.S. fans to a rich boxing scene in Japan that often flies under the radar.

​2016 has been rough for boxing, to say the least. Fighters continue to rot in the throes of inactivity, pining for an opportunity to advance their careers. Just as we’re about to lose all the hope attached to our boxing fandom, we get fights like this one that restore our faith in the sport. We recall those earliest of fights in our memories that drew us to the action in the ring, a grotesque display of fisticuffs that, for some reason, we can’t take our eyes off of. If Salido-Miura fails to meet our expectations, boxing in 2016 will end much like how it played out throughout the year: disappointingly.