Kenshiro Teraji-Carlos Canizalez Tops January 23 Title Fight Doubleheader In Osaka
Kenshiro Teraji will aim to clear out another mandatory title defense ahead of his continued pursuit to fully unify the division.
BS.com has confirmed that the reigning lineal, WBC and WBA junior flyweight king will next face former secondary titlist Carlos Canizales. The scheduled twelve-round bout will top a title fight doubleheader to air January 23 on Amazon Prime-Japan from EDION Arena in Osaka, Japan.
Teiken Promotions and Amazon confirmed the show on Thursday afternoon in Tokyo. A U.S. platform was not mentioned during the announcement, though it is believed that the show will air on ESPN+.
The evening’s chief support will pit WBA flyweight titlist Artem Dalakian versus mandatory challenger Seigo Yuri Akui.
Teraji (22-1, 14KOs) will attempt the fourth defense of his second and current championship reign and fifteenth overall title fight. He’d previously hoped to face WBO titlist Jonathan ‘Bomba’ Gonzalez earlier this April but the bout was canceled when the Puerto Rican southpaw fell ill and could not make the trip abroad.
Both were since burdened with mandatory titles defenses, including back-to-back for Teraji. Former two-division titlsit Hekkie Budler was the WBC number-one contender and overdue for his title shot which came on September 18 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo. Teraji won via ninth-round knockout, as was the case in an April title defense versus unbeaten Anthony Olascuaga, a late replacement for Gonzalez.
Venezuela’s Canizales (26-1-1, 19KOs) previously held the secondary WBA ‘Regular’ title, which he conceded to Mexico’s Esteban Bermudez in an upset May 2021 knockout defeat on the road in Mexico City. Canizales was unbeaten at the time but hadn’t fought in two years.
Four wins have since followed for the Caracas native, including a technical decision win over unbeaten Daniel Mattellon in their June 9 WBA title eliminator on the road in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The well traveled Canizales has not fought at home since September 2017; the title bid versus Teraji will mark his ninth straight road trip.
Dalakian (22-0, 15KOs) also once again fights away from home. The 35-year-old Azerbaijan-born boxer who lives in Kiev was sidelined for more than a year due to the ongoing Russian invasion of his homeland. It also left him without a home for his previously ordered mandatory title defense versus unbeaten David Jimenez.
A deal was reached with Queensberry Promotions to land the fight on the January 28 Artur Beterbiev-Anthony Yarde undercard at OVO Arena Wembley in London. Dalakian claimed a twelve-round, unanimous decision victory.
His title reign dates back to a February 2018 points win over former two-division champ Brian Viloria at The Forum in Inglewood, California. The bout was his lone fight outside of Ukraine prior to the win over Jimenez.
Japan’s Akui (18-2-1, 11KOs) will enter his first career title fight, though the 27-year-old has already faced championship level competition. It came earlier in his career and in back-to-back fights, predating the respective title reigns of countryman Junto Nakatani—against whom Akui suffered a sixth-round technical knockout defeat in August 2017—and Masamichi Yabuki, whom Akui stopped in just 92 seconds.
Nakatani went on to become a two-division titlist and currently holds the WBO junior bantamweight title. Yabuki upset then-unbeaten WBC junior lightweight titlist Kenshiro Teraji in their terrific September 2021 slugfest, but lost the title to Teraji in their immediate rematch last March 18 in Kyoto, Japan.
Akui has won six in a row, including a ten-round decision over undefeated Jayson Vayson on February 4 at the famed Korakuen Hall in Tokyo.
The show will also include the next step in the career of former kickboxing superstar Tenshin Nasukawa (2-0, 1KO) and a domestic battle between Kyoto’s Yuki Yonaha (13-5-1, 8KOs) and Osaka’s Juiki Tatsuyoshi.
Yonaha is best known as the opponent for Nasukawa’s pro debut. The unbeaten Tatsuyoshi (14-0-1, 10KOs) is a second-generation boxer and current junior featherweight prospect. His father is Joichiro Tatsuyoshi (20-7-1, 14KOs), a wildly popular former two-time WBC bantamweight champion during the 1990s.
