ApolloCreed wrote:I didn't realise that te Japanese scene was so strong?
I think people will sit up and take notie of Murray after this one, he hasn't had an opportunity to show what he can do yet. Remmber, this man was one of the classiest amateurs we've produced in quite a while and, from what I hear, his power has improved significantly. Big Ears?? Thoughts?
On Fagan, at 34 he looks to have gone as far as he can, should he win back that Irish LWW strap, could he be Euro level?
Certainly a tough bastard!!
Who is going to be our next legit world champ, or will we ever have one again? Someone like McCloskey could surprise us, bu I think Lee is the man.
My fave Irish fighter though is Duddy.
At the higher weights the Japanese scene is non existent, but at the lower ones Japanese title fights are usually a higher standard than European title fights and countless Japanese fighters have gone from the Japanese title to a World title in one step .
They have bucket loads of quality fighter from minimumweight to Bantamweight and they still have plenty of fighter from Super-Bantamweight to Light-Middle but the quality just isn't the same .
Yusuke Kobori recently went from Japanese Super-Featherweight champion to WBA 'regular' Lightweight champion.
Takahiro Aoh recently went from Japanese Featherweight champion to a World title eliminator, granted he was matched with another Japanese fighter OPBF champion Hiroyuki Enoki , the bout was a draw.
Nobuo Nashiro went from Japanese Super-Flyweight champion to WBA Super-Flyweight champion not too long ago, defeating Martin Castillo for the belt . He's now going to be fighting for the vacant WBA 'regular' Super-Flyweight title as Mijares has unified . He'll be taking on fellow Japanese fighter and current Japanese and OPBF Super-Flyweight champion Kohei Kono .
Yutaki Niida(WBA Minimumweight champ) went from Japanese Minimumweight champion to WBA Minimumweight champion the first time he won the belt, the second time he just won a rematch to the guy he lost to .
Katsunari Takayama lost a Japanese Light-Flyweight title fight and 2 years later won the WBC minimweight title, after losing that title he won the Japanese minimumweight title and from there he won the WBA interim minimumweight title .
Takefumi Sakata went from Japanese Flyweight champion to challenger for the WBA Flyweight champion Lorenzo Parra , he lost two mixed decisions to Parra and then a SD to Roberto Vasquez before getting revenge on both, stopping Parra and decisioning Vasquez . He is the current WBA Flyweight champion .
Daisuke Naito was the Japanese Flyweight champion not long before he finally beat Pongsaklek Wonjongkam for the WBC Flyweight title .
The Japanese title is strong enough at the lower weights that you will often see fighter who lost a Japanese title in their last fight, fight for a World title in their next and it's not that uncommon for them to win . Considering they only go after the WBA and WBC titles it probably keeps the strenght of their national champions stronger . The OPBF(their equivalent to the European title) is really the only other belt competed for over there and that can be held with the Japanese title anyway . If I was to go through guys who went from OPBF champion to World champion recently I'd be here all day .
Anyway back to Ireland and Murray . Murray has a real chance to impress here and the right opponent to do it . He's getting plenty of coverage on RTÉ at the moment and this fight will probably be shown aswell(or at least highlights) . A good performance here and we could see a Brian peters promotion in Cavan with Murray heading before too long . As for his power we'll just have to wait and see, he does appear to be sitting down on his punches a little more and the move down to Lightweight could help but I'm not convinced about his power .
Irregardless of power I think he'll stop McDonagh though . McDonagh may be very tough, but he's not going to be landing much on Murray and Murray will be hitting him at will so whether Murray is able to hurt him or not we'll probably see a mercy stoppage . If Murray is able to stop him it would be impressive though, as if McDonagh has anything it's a good chin and a good ability to take body shots .
Fagan has indeed gone pretty much as far as he can, he won't make it at European level . Fagan is a very tough fighter and with his style and aggresion he is capable of beating very good slick technical fighters(such as how he gave Spadafora and Kimbrough huge problems) but at the same time he's capable of losing to the better journeymen . Chill John ran he very close a while ago in Dublin and really that's just not acceptable of a fighter who's at European level .
When him and Murray fight(it's nearly only a matter of time at this stage) it will be for the Lightweight title not the Light-Welter so he won't be winning back that title. Unless both are up for grabs, infact that mightn't be a bad way to help promote the fight .
McCloskey is the best hope for a World title anytime in the next 2/3 years, after that it'll be Lee but for now McCloskey seems to be the best we have and it'll be very interesting to see him take on Nigel Wright in a months time . Olusegun struggled badly with Wright and manh fancy/fancied Olusegun to capable of fighting at the very top .